She left.
They followed the bank as it wound north. Around noon they spotted a group of dead crouched around something on the ground. They approached cautiously but satisfied grunts and moans drifted in the still air and the dead paid them no attention. They were clearly eating.
Preparing to go around they all heard a sound, almost a sigh, as if a last breath of air had been softly exhaled. With a feeling of dread they drew closer, weapons ready.
Mei lay in the mud. Her eyes were open and her body jerked as the cadavers pulled away strips of flesh and meat. One of them pulled an arm free from its socket and broke the bone with a sharp crack. Another reached into her abdomen and dug around, pulling a dripping piece of dark meat free.
Cam roared, there was no other word to describe it, and grabbed two of the ghouls with both hands, smashing their heads together until they cracked. The third he picked up and slammed repeatedly into a tree, not stopping until the head was little more than splintered bone. He dropped the remains and crouched in the mud. Birds fled as he screamed until his voice faded to hoarse rasps.
They had no way to bury what remained of her poor body so they consigned Mei to the mighty flow of the river, carrying her away to a muddy burial somewhere. Cam stood by the bank until Bea pulled him away.
They wandered through a charred, bleak countryside. The rain stopped but the still gray sky was a backdrop for the blackened trees. Twice they had to stop and let Cam rest. He was very pale and his lips almost blue. Bea feared he had internal injuries but had no idea what to do about it. There was nothing to do but keep going, hoping he would make it long enough to get treatment somewhere, somehow.
David was not familiar with the forest here and was simply heading north in the hope they would eventually find a road with directional signs.
By mid-afternoon he knew they were lost. They stopped for a break and Cam stretched out on the ground, immediately falling into a doze. Bea sat next to David on the damp ground. “Ian and Virginia. Do you think they got away?”
“They were, are two of the most stubborn people I know. Someone pulled that boat up on the bank. If there was any way to get out of there they would have found it. They know we’re heading north. We might get to my folks and find them already there.”
They woke Cam but it took him a while to gain his feet and when he did Fitz had to support him. They trudged on, passing into a green section of forest untouched by the fire. Thirst was a constant torment and they licked the precious drops of moisture left from the night’s rain on the spruce and hemlock branches.
A rustic cabin, probably someone’s hunting lodge, lay just ahead in a green copse. Wooden, moss covered shingles and round glass windows gave it a hobbit-like air. They approached with caution but there was no sign of habitation, dead or otherwise.
Cam groaned and leaned against the door, “I’m knackered, mates. Leave me if you want, I’m going inside. If there’s no bed, the floor will be fine.”
Musty air greeted them but there was no smell of the dead. The single room contained two sets of bunks, a plank table with two chairs, and several oil lamps. Bea wiped away some of the grime from the windows, brightening the room a little. A cedar chest held blankets and she covered Cam who had already rolled into a bunk.
Fitz rummaged around the back of the cabin and returned with two plastic buckets. “I’m going out to scout for a spring, creek, anything that might have clean water. Brian, Moshe, come on. Bring your weapons,” he ordered.
The cabin was decent shelter but the size and the dimness made it feel claustrophobic. David and Bea sat outside, letting Cam sleep. Birds called and the evergreens gave off a fresh, clean scent. Out here nature was untouched by the tragedy visited upon humanity.
Fitz and the boys returned, Fitz with a face like a storm cloud, the boys’ faces white and strained. They had hiked down into a hollow and were soon rewarded with the sound of water splashing over rocks. A narrow stream of water, crystalline and cold, fell from a high rock ledge. They washed out the buckets and were just about to fill them when something splashed heavily into the shallow pool.
The legless torso of a girl splashed haplessly in the water, clawing at the surrounding mud until she climbed out among the mossy rocks. Sensing them she clambered forward, dragging intestines behind her. Brian instinctively stomped her skull in revulsion, popping her eyes and scattering her mostly intact brain in the water. Looking up they saw legs dangling from the ledge. The stream was contaminated. They tried but couldn’t scale the cliff to see if the water was clear upstream.
“At some point we’re going to have to take a chance and drink the water,” Brian said disgruntledly.
“Yeah, but not that water,” Fitz said. “How’s Cam? We need to go.”
Bea sighed and got to her feet. The old door screeched as she pushed it open. The room was darker now and Cam still slept, an unmoving lump beneath the blanket. Licking painfully dry lips she called, “Cam? It’s time to go.”
He jerked awake and holding the bed post, felt his way to a standing position. His legs trembled and he leaned against the wall. Bea’s heart sank. He was too weak to go on and they couldn’t carry him.
She would stay with him. The rest could go on ahead then… what? There weren’t any vehicles that could make it in this terrain. Would anyone be able to find them again in time to help? She and Cam would both probably die here if he didn’t recover enough to walk out soon. They were nearly mad with thirst already.
Cam fell and scrabbled for the bedpost, trying to get back into the bunk. She knelt down, slinging his arm around her shoulder, trying to raise him enough to tumble him back into the bunk when she realized what he was doing.
Before she could stop herself, she exclaimed, “Cam!”
His arm clenched her neck in an iron grip as he turned slowly and faced her. Gnawing on the wooden bedpost, he had splintered the flimsy pine and now chewed hungrily on the slivers before spitting them out. One tooth fell to the floor. Baring a gap-toothed snarl beneath dead eyes with black goo oozing from his mouth, he snapped at her, missing her cheek but catching her hair and yanking hard with his teeth.
In agony, she screamed and fell prone on the wooden floor. Cam fell with her, still squeezing her neck in the crook of his arm. The position he held her in made it impossible for him to reach her with his mouth but in his current state he couldn’t understand that. He kept biting at the air all while tightening his grip on her throat. The light dimmed and she saw silver streaks shooting in front of her eyes. Sounds began to recede.
Something hot and wet splattered against the back of her neck just as a gun popped somewhere near the door. The arm holding her neck twitched and stopped squeezing but didn’t let go. Cam collapsed on top of her, knocking the breath from her body. Someone called her name and rolled the huge man off of her. She could breathe again. Strong hands lifted her up and David looked at her anxiously, wiping the blood and brain matter from her neck and shoulders. Fitz and the boys stood in the doorway, identical expressions of shock on their faces.
“Are you hurt? Did he-”
She couldn’t speak, just shook her head and began to cry, deep, shuddering sobs she couldn’t control. The horror of the day, of the last several days had caught up with her. David held her, rocking her in his arms until she finally stopped. He took her face in his hands and kissed her lightly on the mouth.
“Can you walk?”
She nodded. Cam’s nearly headless body lay sprawled on the dirty floor. His shirt had hiked up and they saw a large, rotting bite mark just beneath his shoulder blade.
David pulled her to her feet. “Then let’s go.”
Night was falling again as they approached a low, stone house set in the curve of a valley and surrounded by a forest full of spruce and fir trees. David’s heart was in his throat as they walked the graveled driveway, weapons held high over their heads. No lights shone in the windows but smoke billowed from the chimney.
A shot rang out and
a bullet sliced the air over their heads as a figure standing on the front steps racked a shotgun and shouted, “There’s nothing here for you. I’m armed and so is everyone else here. Keep moving.”
David kept his rifle high above his head, “Dad?”
The shotgun went down and was laid to one side as the tall man ran toward the drive. He clasped David so tightly he couldn’t breathe. Finally breaking free, laughing, David took Bea’s hand, introducing her and the rest of the group. A woman, gray hair caught back in a sleek pony tail, emerged from the house, eyes wide as if she couldn’t quite believe what she saw. Tears streamed down her face and she smiled.
“Welcome.”
~
World Health Organization
Geneva Bureau
Update- Z-Virus (revised)
The new Director General would like to thank all of the individuals who contributed to the recent laboratory sessions. Research into the nature of the virus has told us little so far, but it is hoped that serological testing will reveal courses of treatment that will allow us to issue protocols. Polymerase chain reaction testing has yielded no results. For now diagnosis remains clinical and treatment is still confined to isolation and restraint of infected individuals.
There is little new information to impart at this time. We are working on consolidating laboratory resources and reinforcing our present location against the continued assaults of the dead. Basic necessities such as water, food, and access to health care continue to dwindle. Electrical grids have broken down leaving the few communities that still exist here cold and in the dark.
Industrialized nations where superior infrastructure and transportation allowed the virus easy and rapid dissemination have been particularly hard hit. It is very difficult to predict when or if they will recover from the virus-triggered devastation.
The usefulness of refugee centers has been very limited as even the most rigorous admission and screening procedures have failed to keep the virus out. The few camps that did not fall to the virus have fallen instead to cholera, dysentery, and meningitis. Mortality rates rival those of the Z-virus infested areas.
Please continue to check the website for updates.
Epilogue
One year later…
A truck, sides splashed with dried mud, labored up a winding mountain road. Cresting the hill, it rolled into the main square of a small town. Skeletal, decayed remains lay layers deep in the streets. Long abandoned vehicles surrounded them, dead drivers still inside. The truck wove through, rolling over the bodies and breaking the brittle bones, crushing them into even smaller mounds of blackened flesh and bone shards.
The truck paused briefly next to a defunct fountain in a central square. The surrounding mountains were breathtakingly lovely, some of them snow-capped. Faces pressed against the truck windows, looking out. Cottony, white clouds scudded along the horizon, blown by the sharp spring gusts.
The truck rolled on. Turning left it soon reached a residential section, passing under oaks, leafless now but ancient and towering. The street was blocked by a phalanx of vehicles. Dead leaves lay in piles around them, as if they had been abandoned there for some time.
Making a sharp left the truck backtracked, eventually reaching a golf course. Bouncing across the once manicured greens it made for a break in a split rail fence taking them through a suburban yard and into an older neighborhood. Houses, burned to empty shells, dotted the street here and there. Dead bodies, emaciated and leathery, lay on the ground. The dirty truck pulled into the driveway of a red-brick house and stopped.
A man, dark-haired and bearded climbed out, a shotgun over one shoulder, a knife in a sheath at his belt. He closed the truck door and walked the perimeter of the house, looking around him as he went. Three bodies, unrecognizable in decomposition, sprawled across the front walkway. He rolled the husks off the pavement with one foot, exposing feeding beetles that scurried away into the grass.
The front door was not locked and he went inside. After a few minutes he re-emerged and went back to the truck. The passenger side door opened and two children climbed out, also looking around warily. Two houses on the other side of the street had burned to the ground and the rusting, derelict hulk of a Lexus lay sideways in one of the yards.
Hands reached out from the truck and handed the man a blanketed bundle which he held close as a woman slid to the ground. The March winds whipped up and blew dark hair around her face and she smiled and tucked it behind her ears before taking the bundle back into her arms. Along the walkway narcissus bulbs poked pink tips above the ground.
The children raced ahead, disappearing inside. Ian and Virginia heard footsteps stomping up the staircase and they followed, carrying their son. They were home.
~
World Health Organization
Geneva Bureau
Update- Z-virus (revised)
General Worldwide
The Z-virus is one of the most transformative events ever to impact our world. Every form of government, every institution of the planet has fallen to the pandemic. It is expected that in most parts of the earth, all sciences, all literature, all that humanity has created will soon be lost forever. Many cultures, perhaps even entire races of people have already or shall soon disappear.
Sporadic assaults and limited battles are occurring daily in most regions as survivors fight for valuable resources such as water, access to food distribution centers, medical supplies, as well as military weapons depots. The failure of the industrialized nations to secure their military stockpiles will unleash additional, lethal instability worldwide.
Radioactive fallout has swept across the Eurasian continent and it is strongly suspected that the sterilizing effects of the radiation are prolonging the “life” of the dead there and in other countries that chose the “nuclear option.”
Recently, incomplete reports filtering out of China indicate the virus may have jumped the species barrier. Smaller vermin, especially rats, have been observed swarming in unusually large numbers and attacking herds of pigs and cattle. Extermination efforts here in Geneva have met with limited success and we believe this will be the case worldwide. At this posting we see no evidence of infection in the local vermin.
Attempts to detect antigenic or genetic responses to the virus have yielded no positive results. If the human body is making an attempt to create an antibody we have found nothing to indicate success. The few labs still functional are rapidly losing supplies and use of equipment as electrical power becomes more and more intermittent.
History tells us that any virus this lethal will soon mutate to a more benign strain. We have yet to see any evidence of this with regard to the Z-virus and it may be that humanity is experiencing an extinction event.
Our fortifications at this location have failed and we fear we will soon succumb to the months long assault on our facilities here. Already the dead have breached the courtyard gates and reached the lower floor of the building, cutting off any escape route.
May God have mercy and be with us in our hour of need.
From the author
I hope you enjoyed Dead Coast and the entire Living Dead series. If you did, posting a review here or at Barnes and Noble.com is a great way to help other readers find it for themselves.
You can find more of my work at Barnes and Noble or on Amazon's L.I. Albemont page
Want to reach me?
You can find me at my blog https://w1927.wordpress.com/
If you want to contact me directly, email me at [email protected].
Special thanks to my husband who put up with me throughout the writing of this book. More thanks to Excellent Editions as well as Project Gutenberg. Both are invaluable resources for writers.
Please enjoy this excerpt from A Haunting, now available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com.
Prologue
“The prisoner will stand for sentencing.”
The judge looked down at her husband, who rose, standing awkwardly in handcuffs and s
hackles. Sarah leaned forward and clutched the back of the seat in front of her. Here each day the first week of the trial, she agonized over each charge, each witness that struck blows at his integrity and judgment. She believed in both until detailed testimony emerged of trips to Aruba with Kelly, a co-worker he had never mentioned. Kelly, tall, tanned, and what her mother would have called ‘floozy blonde’, cooperated with the Feds in exchange for immunity.
After that humiliating afternoon she stayed away, focusing on selling the few things she owned that the Feds had not seized. Despite that, her face appeared in newspapers and at times on local television; or so she had been told. She stopped watching television and reading the paper soon after the arrest.
She was here today to see how this ended, to see if the frozen feeling that encased her would go away. Reporters shouted at her to look their way but she hurried up the steps of the courthouse, avoiding the icy patches left by the weekend snowstorm. Wearing a black skirt and boots, black reefer coat buttoned up against the cold, she wanted the world to forget her. She looked waiflike in the slightly too large outfit and the dark sunglasses were glamorous on a small, heart-shaped face.
It felt strange to be out in public again. Her husband’s financial schemes had defrauded the pension fund for city teachers and firefighters leaving them with no retirement plan and outrage had been vehement. Her husband’s attorney had advised taking precautions against angry victims so she went into hiding, grocery shopping at night, never going to restaurants.
When her boss, Phil, recommended a leave of absence, she acquiesced, knowing the publicity was not good for the small, property development company she had loved working for during the past three years. Two weeks ago, after she made the decision to move away, her co-workers gave her a going-away lunch. Eve and Sharon cried and everyone promised to keep in touch but she was sure she saw secret relief on Phil’s face. It hurt to realize that he considered her a liability now but that was exactly what she was and would be until time erased the town’s memory.
The Living Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Coast Page 24