Rise of the Dead

by Emir Skalonja

  “How did you kill them?” he shouted at the soldiers. They fired their own guns but neither of them paid him any attention.

  Not wasting any time, he turned and ran back through the hallway he came from.

  ***

  The commotion in the back drew Dwight’s attention and when the voices turned to agonizing screams, followed by the gunfire, he shut off the radio and gave it a more careful listen. The soldier in him clutched for the weapon and his index finger found its way on the trigger.

  He turned the key in the ignition, and when the truck came to life he put it into drive, hitting the gas pedal just enough to separate from the dock. He then jumped out of the truck and started running toward the loading area. The weapon was raised and pointed in the direction of the commotion, but when Steve’s body that hung from the plate dropped to the ground and his head burst open on the cement, Dwight realized this was something far more serious than a shouting match with the workers over the process of loading.

  “Shit!” he said half to himself, half out loud. Half-naked men and women were tumbling from the landing to the ground, then slowly getting upright and shambling aimlessly. Some had their legs broken, others were missing their limbs completely; they continued to drag themselves on the ground leaving a trail of their intestines on the cement.

  Dwight shot at them, but he noticed that this only managed to slow them down, making no real impact on their goal, whatever it was. He then saw two of them that had recently fallen, descend on Steve’s corpse and starting to eat it.

  He fired at them again. The bullets hit their torsos, but they still kept moving. Then one stray shot destroyed the head of one and the rest of its body just collapsed to the ground.

  That had to do the trick, Dwight thought as more of them poured out of the building and walked toward him.

  They looked sick, diseased.

  “Patrick!” he yelled. He shouted his teammate’s name once more but no reply came his way.

  Then, he saw three soldiers come from his left, their guns raised and pointed at the warehouse. One of them fired as they ran, hitting one of the walking corpses in the shoulder. The impact knocked it down, but the thing managed to keep moving. That was the crazy thing about it. It just wasn’t possible.

  He stood there for another moment and then hesitantly ran back to the truck and climbed into the cabin. He threw his M4 onto the passenger seat and reached for the key that was still in the ignition. His hand shaking, he turned it and heard the vehicle’s engine kick in.

  Slowly pressing the gas pedal, he drove away from the building and in the side mirror he saw more soldiers come out and run to put down the dead.

  It all sounded insane, Dwight thought; especially the part about dead people coming back to life. It was like a bad dream, a nightmare. He quickly caught a glimpse of one of them taking a nasty bite out of one of the soldiers, nearly ripping half of his arm off.

  And then he saw Patrick come out, waving for him to stop and come back.

  Dwight bit his lip, unsure of what to do, and for a moment, the foot came off the gas pedal, only to floor it again when he saw one of those damn things lunge at Patrick and wrestle him to the ground. It immediately began feasting on his flesh.

  The truck broke through the gate and Dwight turned the steering wheel as far to the right as it would go, but the momentum threatened to flip the transport over, making him fight to keep it on all four wheels. As he tried to straighten it out, he hit the shrub and weed overgrown curb and drove it into the bushes, then again managed to maintain control of it and drive along the fence that ended by what appeared to be a construction site.

  His heart racing fast, he hit the wheel in an episode of anger that had finally taken hold of him, replacing the shock and fear.

  “FUCK!” he yelled at top of his lungs.

  Just as he drove off of the overgrown field and hit the gravel of the construction yard, two people appeared in his path, coming out of nowhere, as if they were mere apparitions, but he was going too fast to do anything but trying to avoid them at the very last second.

  He drove into them (or over them, he wasn’t really sure) but he felt their bodies go under, that was for damn sure.

  The steering wheel turned in his hands violently, as if it had a mind of its own, sending the truck on its side, where it flipped three more times until it finally hit a tree on the other side of the lot. It stood there, overturned on its top, while the engine hissed and began to steam.

  As Dwight slowly came to, shaking his head to get fragments of glass out of it, he saw smoke coming out of the motor. There was a sharp pain in his shoulder and he also felt a trickle of blood coming down the side of his head. He wiped it and saw that it was rather insignificant and small. He’ll live, he thought as the seat belt came undone and dropped him on his back.

  Time was short, so he did what he could to crawl out of the cabin as fast as possible, grabbing the weapon and the gasmask that was on the floor.

  Fearing the explosion would come any second, he ran as far as possible onto the gravel and glanced over his shoulder.

  The blast never came.

  Taking a stand by two bulldozers, he observed the overturned truck and let out a long sigh, as if to modestly celebrate his close brush with death. What a bizarre, hellish day this had turned into. One minute he was sitting and smoking a cigarette, waiting to go back to HQ and get paid, the next he saw dead people come to life.

  Moans came from behind him, maybe a dozen or so yards away, and for a moment, he feared what he would see if he turned his head. It was probably those two people he had hit moments earlier.

  They moaned again; it sounded like they were calling out to him, asking for help.

  The weapon in his hands felt heavy, and his shoulder hurt even more now. It wasn’t dislocated or anything, he figured. It just had to be a bad bruise or something, or at least he hoped.

  Finally turning around, a feeling of dread came over his very soul when he saw the two people he had run over. They were all broken and contorted. One of them was nearly cut in half, the bottom portion of the man’s body dragging on the ground, only connected by intestines. His jaw was ripped and hung there by one side, the tongue dragging through the dirt.

  The other, a woman, seemed lifeless: ne arm had been completely torn off, while the other was wrapped around her, the legs were twisted almost into a knot, and a pool of blood was forming under her mangled body.

  Suddenly, the wretched thing lifted its head and hungrily groaned at him.

  Even at this distance he could tell that there was something wrong with them, besides being mangled by the truck. Yes, there was definitely something unnatural about them: their skin was pale and their eyes, oh, their eyes … they were gray, blank, empty...

  On top of it all, they shouldn’t have been moving, Dwight thought, as he stared at those abominations. The strongest of people were highly unlikely to survive such a collision, and these two over there were just your regular, average size people, most likely a boyfriend and a girlfriend on a date.

  Yes, sure, on a date through a construction site…

  Dwight’s mind raced like a freight train and it was easy to get it off the rails at the speed it was going.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said and wiped the sweat from his forehead, in turn wiping more of the blood that was still coming out. “Need to get the hell out of here. Whatever the fuck this is, it’s not right.”

  He put the gas mask on and after another glance at the mangled couple, he ran.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Becky and Tom parked the car just off the LaSalle Expressway, where the forgotten Love Canal area began. From afar it almost looked like an enclosure, cut off by a street and a highway on one side, and two wide, empty streets a mile and a half on the other. There was nothing here save for the old driveways, with graffiti on them, perhaps an old couch or two the teenagers used for their hangout after hours. The lots, where houses used to be, were now overgrown with shrubs
and bushes, and their traces long lost to time and neglect. It was as if civilization had ceased to exist almost over-night, vanishing into thin air. There was life here once, a tight knit community that was supposed to thrive, a place where children played and went to school, their laughter filling the air as they walked home and chased each other. There were barbecues on these driveways, in the backyards, front lawns, patios…

  But now, life paid a visit when people came for a stroll, or kids hid from the adults in an effort to smoke cigarettes and weed uninterrupted. Cops would pop up every now and then for a routine drive by, just to make sure there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. It wasn’t unusual for these officers to take a break from their duty and nap until their radio sounded with an emergency that needed to be addressed.

  Time moved on outside of this place, leaving it behind only in the memory of those who used to live here. Too often younger generations looked upon each other in confusion when the subject was brought up, for they rarely heard of the Love Canal.

  There were three houses still standing, however, lined up in a row: two still occupied, and one wrapped up in yellow caution tape and asbestos warnings. Their windows looked on the fenced and gated compound on one side and a construction site on the other. And one could say that their structures had seen better days as their façades had begun to peel and chip ages ago, and were desperately begging for a lick of paint.

  Tom and Becky came from the expressway that took them into the adjacent neighborhood where they had parked her car. They began their jog from there, after a few moments of stretching, all to Tom’s nagging and protests.

  ‘She is just as annoying as mother,’ Tom thought as they took their first steps onto what used to be the main road that led into the area. He felt the aches in his calves and thighs. Sure, she could make him stretch all she wanted, but fact was that he rarely worked out, if ever, and these runs were always at Becky’s request. Well, they weren’t requests anymore; they were forced outings that she somehow– perhaps by using her big sister charm – imposed on him, leaving him no choice but to oblige.

  ‘It’s only a couple of miles,’ Tom thought as his heart began to dance in his chest.

  They rounded the corner and from here he could see the wide-open field, covered in dense, lanky stalks of grass. Oh, and of course, there were those annoying prickly things that always got stuck to his socks as a kid – and the hair too – he couldn’t forget about that. He remembered that time when he was nine and he had fallen off his bike head-first into the bushes when Johnny Lukowski, the bully from eight grade, had chased him after school. His mother shaved his head that night just to get all the burs out.

  “So, this is where it all used to be? The houses, I mean?” he said as he panted like a dog.

  “This is the place,” Becky responded calmly, her breathing slowly returning to normal.

  “Damn, it’s so empty now. Almost eerie. I can’t imagine what’s it like at night here. It’s probably when all the junkies come out ‘tis the place, my dear.”

  “Why do you always assume all remote places, secluded from everyday life, are infested with drug addicts? I mean, what’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m just saying, it’s places like these I’d do it in if I was using,” Tom said and coughed as he felt his chest gradually catch on fire. His breath was shorter now, a quick panting, like that of an animal.

  “You’re disturbed, man,” Becky said while pulling ahead. She kept going and he barely heard her.

  He slowed down considerably until his legs felt like wet noodles. Coming to a complete stop, he eventually keeled over, placed his sweaty hands on top of his knees and clenched them. “Alright, alright … let’s … let’s t-take a break.” To keep standing was to vomit, so he slowly lowered himself on the warm asphalt.

  “Seriously?” Becky asked, though there was no surprise on her face as she turned around. “You know we barely ran a mile, right?”

  “We have? Feels a lot longer than that, to be honest.” Tom spoke from the ground, as tiny rocks dug into his hands. He looked up to see Becky’s unamused face. “I’m about to die, right now. You got any water?”

  “Do I look like I have a water bottle on me?” Becky said raising one eyebrow as she always did when she was annoyed. Was it a regular thing or did she just raise it at him? Now that he thought of it, it was definitely just him. But he could have been wrong, though…

  “I don’t know, just asking.”

  “C’mon, let’s go. We’ve got another mile or so to go and then we’ll cool down.”

  “How about we call it a day and we add what we have left onto next week?”

  “Absolutely not.” Becky shook her head and wiped some of her sweat from her forehead. “You always do this, and I’m not falling for it this time. You keep adding to our next runs and, if it were up to you, we’d be running a marathon by now. Get your ass up and let’s finish this.”

  “Jesus, when did you turn into our mother?” Tom said as he propped himself up and somehow managed to get back on his feet.

  “When I started making your lunch to take to school. Did you forget that?” Becky said and wrapped her left arm around herself and pushed her elbow with the other.

  “Oh no, how could I forget, peanut butter and jelly most days, sometimes replaced with bologna and ketchup.” Tom took a couple of slow steps and shook his feet in preparation for the remainder or their run. Blood rushed into his face, turning it red and concealing his few, but pronounced birthmarks. He pinched his shirt at the chest and shook it in an attempt to get some airflow there. Good thing it was black and you really couldn’t see the swamp of sweat that his body had become. And on top of that, the shirt was long sleeved. What idiot wore a long-sleeved shirt on a seventy-degree day? He then rolled them up and felt only a slight and brief breeze that soon disappeared.

  Becky let out a short laugh and waved her hand in disapproval. “Well, that was on you mister. You used to love bologna and ketchup. You were probably the only weirdo in our family who loved that bizarre combination. Man, do I have to keep jogging your memory today?” She then made a face and sniffed the air around her.

  “What is it, you smell that sandwich now?” Tom said, his lips curling into a smirk.

  “Something reeks here, like really bad.”

  Tom fell silent and concentrated as he smelled the foul odor coming from down the street. “Now that you mention it, I can smell it too.”

  “That’s our cue to get going then.”

  “Yeah, let’s go.”

  Becky made a gagging noise, her tongue sticking out as if she was really going to vomit.

  “Damn, what is that?” Tom said and grimaced at the stench as they slowly broke into a light jog. Then he saw a black garbage bag on the ground and what appeared to be about a thousand maggots coming out of a hole on the side of it.

  “I don’t know, but it’s disgusting.”

  “It looks like we’ve found the culprit,” Tom said and nudged her as they went past it, Becky briefly glancing at it.

  “Oh God,” she said and gagged again. “I don’t even want to know what the hell is in there.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t investigate.”

  “Appreciate that very much.”

  They sped up and left the rancid bag behind.

  Tom saw a lone crow swooping down. It began pecking at garbage bag, ripping an even larger hole, and then spewing a mangled mass of meat over the ground with maggots crawling all over it.

  It pecked the mass a few times, then took it into its beak and flew away.

  ***

  When Jack was done filling up the gas tank, he replaced the cap and got back into the car. Jill was there, checking her makeup in the little fold out mirror she kept with herself at all times. ‘She looks good in that outfit,’ he thought as he bucked himself in. That black corset really made her breasts look inviting. All of a sudden, he had an itch to touch them, play with them a little, but he stopped himself. There
were other things to take care of first.

  ‘Business before pleasure,’ he thought.

  “All set?” Jill asked as she snapped closed her tiny mirror.

  “Sure,” Jack said. “That should be good for now. We don’t have much further to go, just another mile or so. Once there, we dump his body and that’s that.”

  “This is exciting,” Jill said all giddy. She wore a smile on her face since she shot the man.

  She did good; Jack made sure to tell her that. She wasn’t a professional killer by any stretch of the word, but she had handled herself well. That was just the beginning and she could only improve from there. Not that Jack himself was that much better; he had only two kills under his belt up to this point, but the difference between the two of them was that he handled himself like a professional in all of the confrontations he had ever been in, the ones that had resulted in a kill and the ones that had ended in broken bones or severed limbs.

  “Sure, it’s exciting. Now the money will start pouring in, and the jobs … then who knows. We are a hundred grand richer than we were two days ago. Feels good, right?”

  “It sure does! No more worries how we’re gonna pay the bills, how we’re gonna afford this and that. Now comes the good life. I’ve already started to make a list of all the things I wanna buy.”

  “Yeah? Like what?” Jack asked.

  “Well, to start, I’d like the best possible bottle of wine. The most expensive, that is. Then I’m just gonna soak in the tub until I’m wasted. Oh, and put on an old, good record. So that means I’ll have to go and buy a record player, which as you know, I’ve always wanted one.”

  “That sounds good. It looks like you really put a lot of thought into this.”