Living amongst the Dead

by J. Morgan

  Living

  Amongst

  The

  Dead

  J N Morgan

  Copyright © 2016 J N Morgan

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1539611167

  ISBN-13: 978-1539611165

  Chapter 1

  The stench was the worst part, he had thought. That God awful smell of decay occasionally mingled with that which came from the loss of bowel control brought by death. He figured that was the part that bothered him the most, the part that unsettled and disgusted him the greatest, but he had been wrong. This was known of course; you don’t survive primarily on your own for so long without learning things about them as well as yourself. Even aspects that strike you personally; discoveries in learning what you are and aren’t good at, what makes you tick… and what you are and aren’t capable of.

  Kneeling on a slight hill on the highway, cold brown eyes squinted, peering at a large town not far in the distance. Some houses, a few small stores, a modest police station, post office, one convenience store in sight with a gas station, there was probably a pleasant little grocery store in there somewhere where the previously-living locals would have gone regularly to restock their fridges and cupboards. A deep grunt of a quiet laugh hit the man as he shook his head, reminded of how he had once looked upon such buildings. ‘A smorgasbord! Firearms in the cop station! Food in the stores! Check the houses for loot! Get fuel from the gas station! Try to fortify yourself in one of the buildings and scavenge as the days go by; you’ll be good for WEEKS! MONTHS EVEN!’

  Foolishness… even without the aid of binoculars or a scope, he could see the distant undead shambling about aimlessly. They were like baby spiders that had grown enough to leave the egg sack in which they’d hatched, spreading out, yet at first not straying TOO far from where their life had begun. Some, inevitably, would leave this town and he was certain that many already had, but some would undoubtedly remain. Stragglers; there were far too many to deal with in spite of his armaments, and even if he COULD take them all out, to claim this town as his own… and that was an impossible if… it would be useless.

  How many months had it been since power went out? A book of lined paper in the survivor’s backpack had been used to keep track of the date, at least roughly. The idea came to him early on when the cities were in a panic, the biters cropping up in hospitals as unfortunate individuals died. Some gained infection-like sickness without a bite which was generally considered the primary way of GETTING infected, though anyone who passed on with their brain intact would inevitably return to join the legion of the endlessly hungry.

  It must have been something in the air, yet some people seemed to have had an immunity of sorts to it while the rest were dropping like flies. Eventually the hospitals were sent some cops to deal with those who were looking the worst. Lock the patient’s door when the line went flat, and get the Officer of Death to come and deal with it. Mistakes would happen of course; he or she would be sloppy, or didn’t get a well-aimed shot off… got bit, panicked, began to bleed out quickly, people screamed as they watched through the glass from outside the ex-patient’s door as flesh was rendered one bite at a time. Someone brave enough might have a pocket knife and try to be the hero… one casualty became two, two became four, four became eight, and often times the hospitals were the first part of the city to become overrun. More and more people got infected from God knows what; the air, the water, who knows, but they would go there in sickness and quickly find their death.

  Since the idea of keeping track of the date had come somewhat late after the cell phones had been drained of battery power for the last time, he wasn’t 100% sure of what date it was. Give or take a week, today should be around September 1st. Roughly half a year all this has been happening. The world’s human population must have taken one HELL of a hit… the dead outnumbered the living, that’s for damn sure. Here Richard knelt, looking at a town owned by the dead, and looking through the naive eyes he had about 6 months ago. A lot can change in half a year, however… a Hell of a lot.

  That cop shop would in all likelihood have been picked clean weeks if not MONTHS ago! Every pig given all the ammo they could carry when control over the situation was being lost. Even if they hadn’t; at SOME point people will have made their way in, and made their way out with all they could hold. The stores? Any fresh produce is now a stinking, rotting pile of decay spawning an infestation of maggots and flies. Canned food will have been bought or simply looted in the panic before the place was completely overrun. The majority of individual’s plans for surviving a ‘zombie apocalypse’ as it were being called back then was to simply scavenge… most people with that mind set have died by now, whether from hunger or from the obvious risks that came with heading into large towns and cities that were dominated by these walkers.

  Sure, the homes might prove to have some supplies, but they were MORE likely to hold dangers. At this distance, he could not smell them, but knew that upon approaching this old settlement the stench would be upon him shortly, and lingering amongst the smell of the dead was probably to welcome disease. Never would he want to hold up in there; even if there was a heavily fortified brick house with a water purifier, a huge stock of non-perishable food, bottled water, and a multitude of firearms with plenty of ammo to go with them so as to leisurely pick off the rotters outside… he would not. Some would, perhaps, but not him. Firstly, it was far too much to hope for, to find a place like that which hasn’t already been broken into and looted. Secondly, the stench and moans would make for very little sleep, not that he got a lot to begin with but was not interested in getting even less. Thirdly, what’s the end game? The food and bottled water would be finite even if the ‘water purifier’ (whatever that was that his imagination cooked up) wasn’t powered by electricity, which would have render it useless if it WAS due to the lack there of. It could renew his urine into potable water perhaps, but the amount would lessen day by day as moisture left him via breathing and sweat…

  No, he would inevitably have to leave in search of food and fresh water. To hunt, to fish, to forage, to boil, to do what he could to find more sustenance. He was still learning the art of survivalism so should not try to take the easy way out. As difficult as life was, he must continue the difficulty, and so the man stood, knowing since he had knelt that this place was no place for him. Still, it was a nice breather. The Sun was high; checking the carabiner watch that hung at the belt loop of his blue jeans, the arms on its face told its owner that it was quarter after two. Good few hours of travel yet before night; best get a move on. Put this town of the dead behind him and keep going. East, always east. This fellow wasn’t hurting for supplies anyways; indeed he couldn’t carry much more if he wanted to. Not comfortably, anyhow.

  Heading down the slight hill he had been perched on, knowing he faced east along the highway which was the primary direction he traveled, the survivalist began looking for a way to circle around this busy graveyard before him. Smarter to avoid it than to try and cut through… however he gave a pained moan as his eyes caught something. A pub, and situated RIGHT next to it… a liquor store. Damn… damn damn damn, he shouldn’t have even been looking. The 6’ onlooker had stopped in his tracks, knowing he shouldn’t have. Keep going, you moron! OBVIOUSLY there’s no way to safely get to it, and even if he could, it was NOT something that constituted an essential for survival. ‘You’ve already got some in your pack!’ His mind told him impatiently.

  Thoughts came of all those afternoons, evenings, and nights he had spent in bars, taverns, pubs, whatever you want to call them! Places of leisure, of music, sometimes even LIVE music. They were places to drink, to talk to strangers as though they were old friends, and to get to know the people beh
ind the bar in inebriated conversation. In this Canadian’s experience, they were never a place to fight. The occasional argument might happen, not once had he seen an actual fist fight, only once having seen someone get kicked out. No, most nights they were his favourite place in the world to be, but now if anyone was in there they’d likely be dead, stinking up the joint, but the thought of liquor made him oh so thirsty…

  Boots kept on trudging, and to the right could see a path in the woods which would bring him southeast to go around this town. Perfect. Leaving the pavement, carefully plodding his way down a grassy bank, nearly slipping once, and soon the forest engulfed him. Pleasant smells, pleasant sights, a scruffy looking man with a backpack; he could pass for just some normal hiker in a normal world! Well, save for the rifle slung on his right shoulder, but even then he figured long-distance hikers SHOULD be armed to protect themselves from potentially dangerous wildlife. It was a No.4 Lee Enfield, its full Military stock smooth, four lines cut in the wood on either side just in front of the action/chamber area to help the shooter keep a good grip with his left hand, or in the case of lefties, their right hand.

  He’d owned it for years; it was his baby, once one of his many babies. That thick barrel free-floating inside the wood that stretched to nearly the muzzle, the long radius aperture sights similar to that of the venerable M1 Rifle or M1 Garand as it’s commonly known, however with the protective ears of the front sight sticking vertically up rather than curving out like said semi-auto. He had owned one of them himself, was tempted to carry that instead during the panic but decided a bolt action would be better off. Both firearms were well over 70 years old, and the M1 wasn’t in the best shape ever, not to mention he had not yet quite perfected his custom hand loaded version of M2 Ball .30-06.

  So that rifle went to a friend, back when they had escaped the city. Fort McMurray… it seemed like so long ago. A second evacuation, the first being from a terrible wildfire, but that second one had not gone NEARLY as smoothly. They hadn’t gotten far by vehicle; drove south along Highway 63 to Edmonton, rightly avoided that major city, the capital of the Province of Alberta, and went east. They had known where they wanted to go, and it was nowhere near that oil producing prairie Province. Would have been nice to see Calgary, the traveler reflected; he’d only ever been to the airport… ‘the airport’. Looking up, little of the sky could be seen amongst the trees but knew that even if he stood on a mountain now with a clear view in every direction as far as the eye could see; there would be no planes or helicopters, nor cars or trucks or vans moving about on the road… There likely wasn’t a gas station left on Earth that still had fuel in it. Vehicles were scattered here and there about the highways and roads, stopping where they ran dry, where someone inside had succumb to infection and terrorized the others, where they had gotten into an accident, or where they just… gave up… put a gun to their head and ‘boom’.

  Thinking on this, needless to say, was less than uplifting but it was the world he lived in. Sweat began to trickle down his short dark brown hair again, having dried a bit on that hill where there was a pleasant autumn breeze, but now in the woods it felt mustier, moister, warmer, but at least it smelt nice and fresh. It was a little bit like OCD… right hand grasped the wooden stock of the rifle that hung off his shoulder, down around the buttstock just before the trigger guard. Pulled forward, the muzzle began to fall backwards; sling slipping off his broad shoulder, the rifle was now parallel with the ground, pointing behind him, falling. The hand brought the brass butt plate towards the right side of his chest with the muzzle pointing down now, but he was too tall to let it scrape the dirt path on which he was still steadily walking. Momentum made the roughly 9.5lb loaded firearm continue to swing, like a pendulum making its first motion, and once it was looking at the trail a few feet in front of him the left hand grasped the front portion of its wooden stock.

  The motion took all of a second or two. From grasping the ‘grip’ portion of the rear stock, to pulling forward, swinging it over 180 degrees, feeling the sling slip off all the while, and now it was held properly. The wood felt beautiful in his hands, felt natural, it just felt ‘right’. A smile came to his unshaven face as he looked down at it, right hand motioning around the action to the left side, flipping the safety lever forward to disengage it. The hand returned to the right side of the action, lifting the bolt to turn it 60 degrees so as to unlock it, and pulling it back a short ways. He knew it was loaded, however checked regularly none the less. He seen brass; it was indeed loaded, for he pretty much NEVER left a spent casing in the chamber. The bolt operated as smooth as can be for the Lee bolt was cock-on-close rather than the stiffer cock-on-open that came with most Mausers, Mosins, the Italian Mannlicher-Carcano, and so on. In a past life, meaning around half a year ago basically, he had been a collector of historic firearms. Not only that, but an avid target shooter.

  His large and calloused hand, betraying hard work he’d done in the field of construction, moved to a different position. Right thumb went in front of the unlocked bolt while his four fingers placed themselves on top of the chambered cartridge that was being pulled out. The bolt was brought all the ways back, back of his thumb pushing it, and the fingers that lingered over the mag kept the .303 round from ejecting entirely. The walking pace had not slowed. Now taking that cartridge in hand, he pushed it onto the top of the rounds in the magazine; it clicked in, the protruding rim of this old rimmed ammunition was safely in front of the rim beneath it. Pushing down on the top rounds, they had barely any give, which meant it was loaded with all 10 rounds that could fit in the mag. Perfect. He COULD go 10 plus 1 in the chamber, but why be excessive and put MORE wear and strain on the magazine spring than necessary? Even 9+1 was a bit much, but hey, the opportunity was there, so he took it.

  Having confirmed that the firearm is fully loaded and had had a round chambered, he closed the bolt in one swift motion, chambering the cartridge that had just been unchambered. ‘Cock-on-close’… resistance upon closing the bolt caused by the cocking piece being held back on the sear so that when the sear dropped from the trigger being pulled, the cocking piece would spring forward, and the firing pin connected to it could detonate the primer of the chambered cartridge. That resistance, when the bolt was closed with authority, which it just was, went unnoticed while the resistance of a cock-on-open rifle such as the venerable Kar98k, renown M91/30 Mosin or “Mosin Nagant” as many called it… that could not be ignored. This made the Lee bolt inherently smoother and faster.

  Only 60 degrees of rotation when the bolt was locked into place once more. This as opposed to the 90 degrees of most bolt actions also contributed to a smoother and faster bolt. These aspects, coupled with the 10-round magazine, the long radius aperture sights, the thick floating barrel, and the handy storage space in the butt stock for a brass oil bottle and pull-through rope to clean the bore, were the many reasons why this Canuck believed the No.4 Lee Enfield was the BEST standard issue bolt action rifle ever to grace God’s green Earth. The safety was pulled back on the left side of the receiver, engaging it, locking the bolt into place and rendering the trigger useless. Then it was swiftly slung over shoulder once more, welcoming its weight.

  It calmed him, comforted him, and most importantly reminded him that his firearm was ready. Not so much for the undead, but in case a deer, a moose, or some other such meaty animal were to present itself. For the dead, unless it was a desperate situation, he relied on a different weapon. Not the side arm concealed in his black leather IWB (Inside the WaistBand) holster, but what hung on the outside of the left side of his belt. A cruciform socket bayonet, the spike was slim but sturdy, the end a vicious point, and the resulting wound came out as a sort of plus sign or an X. The Mosin series of rifles had cruciform bayonets as well, though the end doubled as a flathead screwdriver while this WWII Lee Enfield bayonet had a sharp point negating a possibility to use it to unscrew something, sadly.

  By scraping it out of its metal scabbard, the socket can be
slipped onto the end of the muzzle, twisted to lock it in place, and the rifle could then double as a spear. No need for that now though; so far this walk in the woods was calm, quiet, and pleasant. To think that mere months ago he’d have likely been able to hear the busyness of the town, the vehicles driving through along the highway, perhaps dogs barking in backyards, possibly even smell barbeques, and so on. Now it was silence. Once he had preferred silence, like that in the solitude of a lonely walk in the woods, and his thick, muscular legs within their denim confines betrayed this fact. No stranger to long walks was this man, and having worked in a physically demanding construction trade, carrying heavy gear was not an uncommon thing either.

  Still, traveling by foot on this SCALE… hours and hours and hours almost every day, it had been terribly hard on his feet at the start. Driving was great; it was the best! In the vehicles, together with his buddies, a small ‘convoy’ of 3 rigs with various supplies in each that was owned by the group of companions, the firearms and ammunition provided by himself with them providing most of the food. It had gone relatively well, but all the gas stations were empty within the first couple days as people tried to flee the cities. Accidents forced drivers to take to ditches or driving only half on pavement until the wreckages could be passed. Even before the panic really took hold, many wished to go to places of solitude; to summer homes, to friends who lived in the country, to cabins and the like. At LEAST to towns such as this, probably thinking of places like that which he was now avoiding, but of course those would likely not prove to be places of safety.

  Ah, the woods were thinning out along his left while the trail wheeled towards the east once more from the southerly direction from which it began. Seeing through some gaps in the foliage, it would seem he were still a good distance from whatever location that was to the northeast of him now. The wandering dead were none the wiser of him so far… good. He rotated his shoulders, which complained with pops in his joints. The rifle felt comfortable enough, however on his left shoulder was where most of the strain was. His backpack, once used for College, now held most of the things he held dear in this world; the things that kept him alive.