by Kody Boye
Sunrise
Kody Boye
They said the world would end in 2012. They never said it would end like this.
Dakota Travis and his neighbor Steve Earnest have been hiding out in a fortified apartment in the month following the zombie apocalypse, but when a rogue gang uproots them and chance brings one of its members into their midst, there is little the two of them can do but run.
They find sanctuary in a converted asylum with members of the United States Army, and while things seem to be safer than before, an underlying strain of tension begins to rule their lives as Sergeant Armstrong, leader of the small military troop, begins to succumb to insanity, while Dakota slowly and slowly begins to find himself becoming attracted to one of the sergeant’s men, a sin that not only transcends traditional military policy, but the moral boundaries of happiness after tragedy terrible enough to destroy the entire world.
In a world of the undead, the fierce, the savage and the unthinkable, who can hope to survive one final sunrise?
From the Author
A special note from Kody Boye, author of Sunrise:
Dear reader,
If you are coming across this novel in 2012, you’ll be happy to hear that you are currently looking at the revised, rewritten and expanded edition of Sunrise (simply titled Sunrise: Revised and Expanded.) This edition was created out of the love for not only the story, but its genre and characters. I rewrote it with the intention of capturing the individual characters’ fears, trials, problems and their escapades. The story is (mostly) the same — it’s just been upgraded to a new and stronger form.
Thank you,
Kody
SUNRISE
The Revised and Expanded Edition
A novel by Kody Boye
For Rhiannon and Corey
For giving me a place to call home.
Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality
Emily Dickinson
INTRODUCTION
Otherwise known as:
My Love Affair with the Gay Apocalypse
First and foremost, I want to say that the idea of the ‘zombie apocalypse’ isn’t something new. Since Night of the Living Dead and its subsequent sequels rolled around in the late 1960s, it seems like everyone and their dog has been writing about the end of the world. Rhiannon Frater and her As the World Dies trilogy; David Moody with his Autumn novels; Max Brooks and his Zombie Survival Guide; Wayne Simmons and his novel Drop Dead Gorgeous; Travis Adkins with his Twilight of the Dead series and the late Z.A. Recht with his Morningstar Strain—look up the word ‘zombie’ on Amazon to see just how widespread this phenomena is. How many results does it return? About 42,000. To say that the zombie apocalypse is popular would be an understatement.
As a child of the late nineties and early two-thousands, I got to experience the maiden voyage of the twenty-first century’s zombie craze. Dawn of the Dead, Zack Snyder’s remake, came out in 2004. The first time I saw it I was in shock and awe, and it was the very thing that made me write a zombie trilogy that has since (and gladly) been retired. But it wasn’t in 2004 that the idea for Sunrise came around. No. It was later, in 2009, when I first read Brian Keene’s Dead Sea, that the idea for Sunrise popped into my head.
What idea was that, you asked? It was a zombie story told from a gay man’s point of view.
Keene had successfully created what I believe is a realistic scenario in which the zombie apocalypse would happen. The events were traumatic, the writing fluid, the story gripping—he’d done everything I believe any good zombie novelist would do: create a non-stop zombie apocalypse story. However—while his main protagonist was gay, I felt as though we weren’t ‘in’ a gay man’s head. This frustration, combined with my teenage desire to read more about young men (or just men) who had my problems and my desires, was what spurred me on to write Sunrise.
I pulled this novel from circulation after Horror Realm 2009 because I believed it needed work, and by God it did. Since then, there’s been a bit of reconstruction regarding everything about this novel. Certain plot elements have changed, Characters have been renamed. Scenes have been added or taken out depending on their need. All of this, however, was to give you the novel you hold in your hands now—Sunrise: The Revised and Expanded Edition—and while other zombie novels with gay leads have since been released (Asylum by my friend Mark Allan Gunnells for instance,) I still believe Sunrise was one of the genre’s first.
The horror community, though often eager to accept new aspects of the genre, has sometimes been not so accepting of gay leads in novels, especially zombie novels. This isn’t to say that this community is not going to accept this novel. It does, however, mean that choice people may not be keen to read this. And to tell you the truth, I’m fine with that. Sunrise was written primarily for myself, but also for the gay community. The last thing I intended to write Sunrise as was the traditional ‘zombie’ novel. That isn’t to say this novel is without its scares, no, but it’s not a constant run-and-gun-‘em book. This novel is first, and foremost, about the characters—the people whom, through choice circumstances, have been united under one banner.
To the horror fans: thank you for at least giving this book a try.
To the gay community: thank you for your continued support.
And for the one person I wrote this book most explicitly for (me): Thank you for sticking with this. You’ve come a long ways since 2009 and this novel is better for it.
Enough rambling—now: on to the story!
Stay Alive, Zombie Fans,
Kody Boye
12/29/11
CHAPTER 1
There comes a point in everyone’s life in which they change. Be it their age, their person, their family, their friends or their world, things come about and, eventually, things go awry. It doesn’t necessarily matter who you are. You can be anyone you want to be in whichever frame of mind you exist. All that matters is that regardless of what happens or who it happens to, you stay true to yourself and be thankful for the things you have.
Sometimes, if you’re not thankful for the things you have, they can disappear completely.
That happened to Dakota Travis the day his neighbor, Steve Earnest, burst into the adoption center and pulled him toward his apartment.
What’re you doing! Dakota had cried.
They’re here! Steve had replied.
Who’s here?
The zombies from New York.
Little more than a month later, not a whole lot had changed.
Seated inside a nearly-abandoned apartment building in a heavily-fortified, one-bedroom flat, Dakota looked up just in time to see Steve saunter out of the bedroom, shirt stretched forward to hold the contents of the medicine cabinet. Pills, ointments, toothpastes, razors and other necessities—there wasn’t a whole lot they could use unless they wanted to shave or brush their teeth.
“Is this it?” Dakota asked.
“This is it,” Steve nodded, a sigh escaping his lips.
Dakota closed his eyes.
Great. Just great.
It wouldn’t be long before they would have to run into town—on foot, no less.
“Hey,” Steve said, clapping Dakota’s shoulder, “we’ll be fine for a few more days. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“We still have cans,” Dakota said, pushing himself off the couch.
“And we still have all that bagged shit.”
“You always did eat too much junk food.”
Steve laughed and brushed a hand through his hair. “I did.”
Old habits didn’t necessarily matter anymore. They ate any and everything they could get their hands on, regardless of fat content or nut
ritional value. Distinguishing one thing from another based solely on a label was useless nowadays, especially when everything needed to be rationed to the point where it was nearly obsolete. They’d both slimmed down, based solely on what they’d been eating—cold canned beans, chips, pretzels and the occasional vegetable.
Not sure what else to say or do, Dakota made his way toward the window. There, he sighed, took a deep breath, then looked back at Steve before parting the curtain.
Outside, a lone figure shambled on.
The zombie had not a care in the world.
“I don’t like how there’s been so few of them,” Dakota whispered, shivering as Steve brushed up alongside him.
“Neither do I,” Steve said.
“Where do you think the rest of them went?”
“I don’t know. I hate to say it, but I hope some sorry bastard lured them off. At least that’ll save us the trouble of having to dodge around them.”
“I guess.” Dakota turned his head down, letting his long, stringy bangs shield his eyes from the waning light of the midafternoon sun. He traced the whispers of dust on the windowsill and tried not to think about how, were they not in their current situation, the window would be clean. Steve had always been a good home keeper, regardless of what some might’ve thought based on his scruffy, unkempt appearance.
Dakota closed his eyes.
Dust never shined on gloomy days. Then again, it didn’t shine at all.
“Dakota,” Steve whispered, startling the younger man out of his trance.
“Yes?”
“I’m closing the window.”
“Oh. Right.” He moved aside to allow Steve easy access to the curtains, then watched as his friend strung his fingers through the dark, maroon fabric and began to position them over the curtain—slowly, with a sense of patience like that of a snail crossing a hot highway on a busy day. Such a process became second nature over time. You watched for people watching you from across the street or the shadows of alleyways, for zombies cocking their heads to the skies; you drew the blinds over the looking glass into the outside world as though any and all movement could reveal your presence to others. If you didn’t, there might as well be a gun in your mouth and a finger on the trigger, a lone shell waiting to fire into your brain.
“I’m gonna go shave,” Steve said after he finished closing the window, pressing a hand against Dakota’s shoulder as he made his way to the coffee table. He stopped in midstride, when Dakota didn’t respond.
“Koda? You gonna be ok?”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
Nodding, but with a frown painting the curve of his mouth, Steve plucked a razor from the pile of toiletries and made his way toward the bathroom.
Dakota turned, looked at the curtains, and closed his eyes.
He never could’ve imagined how lonely being stuck in a dark room could be.
That night, Dakota drew his knees to his chest and tried to drown out his thoughts, a process easier said than accomplished. He went to bed and almost immediately closed his eyes, then tried to get as comfortable as possible. Somehow, though, he couldn’t fall asleep. Counting sheep, drowning in a black void, forcing himself to realize how good it felt to lay in a warm, soft bed—he tried everything he could, yet to no avail.
It took him only a few moments to realize what was wrong—he couldn’t count sheep because every time he tried to conjure one forward, it would disappear, he didn’t like the idea of falling into a place he couldn’t get out of, and Steve’s bed was too hard.
In the midst of everything, Steve shifted, once again jarring Dakota from a failed attempt at sleep. The older man’s side of the blanket settled on top of him a moment later.
Here we go again, he thought, tossing the blanket back.
“I’m not cold,” Steve mumbled.
“It’s cold,” Dakota said.
“Maybe to you, but it isn’t to me.”
Steve tossed the blanket back. More annoyed than anything, Dakota threw it right back at him.
“Dakota,” Steve said, exasperated now.
“Do you want me to sleep on the couch?”
“Please, don’t. I already said I’m not cold, so don’t throw the blanket back to me.”
“Whatever.” Dakota settled back into the bed, this time with the whole blanket. He drew it around his side and tucked it under him, rolling over so his back faced Steve.
After a moment, Steve chuckled, then said, “I guess this means you can’t sleep either.”
“I guess it does.”
“You wouldn’t be worrying about me otherwise.”
“Yeah right,” Dakota smirked, rolling onto his back. He stared at a poster on the ceiling, its edges long-since frayed and its corners curled. Men in capes, women in leotards, dogs with emblems on their chests—it didn’t take much to imagine the person that had once stood on this bed and pinned the poster to the ceiling. It was likely a teenager, possibly the only son of a single parent, or a middle-aged man without a girlfriend who preferred to inhabit a world of fantasy instead of reality. Steve said the poster had been there since the beginning and he hadn’t bothered to take it down. What is the point of removing something that once meant so much to someone? Steve had asked during one of their first conversations about it, right after it all had begun. You’re just taking a memory away.
“It makes you wonder,” Dakota muttered, smiling when he saw the metal tack wink at him.
Steve grunted and threw his legs over the side of the bed. “I have to take a leak. You coming?”
“You need my help?”
“Fuck you.”
Chuckling, Dakota crawled out of bed and followed Steve out of the room and into the kitchen. Steve took an empty plastic bottle from a rack on the cupboard and slid behind the island to give himself some privacy.
“Sucks the toilet doesn’t work,” Dakota commented.
“No kidding,” Steve said, lifting the bottle a moment later. He carefully opened a nearby window and rolled the bottle off into the dumpster below. “You need to go?”
“No.”
“You hungry?”
“For what?”
“A pickle.”
“I… guess.”
“Hey,” Steve laughed, “I don’t like ‘em either, but it’s food, right?”
Dakota nodded. No one needed to remind him of that.
While Steve turned and started rummaging through their meager food stores, occasionally swearing but mostly mumbling, Dakota looked out the window Steve had just opened and tried to imagine what it would be like to not have a home. In this day in age, things could change by the minute, if not the second. It didn’t take much for someone to come in with a gun or a group of cannibalistic corpses to charge down the street and storm your house. In a world without law and a country without borders, it took little for something to happen. Dominoes fell constantly, especially when you were alone.
“Here ya go,” Steve said, offering the pickle between two fingers.
“Thanks.”
“It’d be better with whatever, but we gotta save what we’ve got for tomorrow.”
“What?” Dakota asked
“We gotta go. We’re almost out of water.”
“Why the hell didn’t you mention this earlier?”
“Because I didn’t want you to argue with me.”
“Steve,” Dakota sighed, setting his pickle on the counter. The audible crunch of Steve’s pickle between his teeth made him grimace. “I wouldn’t have argued with you.”
“Yeah, you would’ve.”
“Maybe for a little, but not for long.”
“Look, Dakota.” Steve shoved the last bit of pickle in his mouth, chewed, then set his jaw. “We have to go out. I know you don’t want to, because I sure as hell don’t want to either, but we have no choice. If we’re going to stay in this apartment, we’re going to need water. As it stands, we haven’t taken a bath for nearly a week. We smell like shit.”
You’re telling me. Dakota took a bite out of his pickle. “When?” he asked.
“Tomorrow, before the sun comes up.”
“Where’re we going?”
“The supermarket. If we’re lucky, there’ll still be something left when we get there.”
Where the hell is Steve? Dakota shoved a can of creamed corn into his backpack. Steve had run off to explore the rest of the store, while Dakota had busied himself with gathering food and any other necessities. Fruits, vegetables, the occasionally saucy soup and snack cake—what little he could find filled the bottom of his pack, but he already knew it wouldn’t last them more than a few days. They each needed to eat, and it wasn’t much.
We need to eat more than we have been. As though it had a mind of his own, Dakota’s hand slid down his chest, lightly touching the now-visible bones. It doesn’t matter. This is why we came.
Sliding forward, Dakota pushed himself in the small space between the two bottom shelves and reached for another can, desperate to grab it. They couldn’t risk going another week with only five cans of food.
Or a half-week, he thought, grimacing. We can’t keep sharing one can a night.
Something rolled past him.
Dakota shot out of the small space, scraping his shoulders in the process.
“Dammit!” he hissed, tears springing to his eyes. “What the hell was that?”
A lone jar of mayonnaise continued down the aisle.
“Steve?” he asked, standing. “Are you there?”
Silence.
“Steve? Come on—this isn’t funny. Stop screwing around.”
Again, he was greeted only by silence. This time though, a figure stumbled into the aisle.
A zombie, caked with dirt and dried blood, turned its head as it caught sight of Dakota, then stretched its arms out like a friend long since lost to time.
Reaching down, Dakota grabbed his backpack off the floor, slid his hand down to his belt, and fingered for his holster.