When he was finally satisfied that the bloodied and broken bodies of the soldiers had no life left in them, Jeremy waved his hand and dismissed his telekinetic appendages. The bodies of the soldiers crashed to the ground unceremoniously. He knelt at Jason's side again, for the first time showing signs of worry and fear. The lifeless body was all too real, a sight that pierced him deeper than anything he'd seen so far – more than the betrayal he felt at being assaulted by alleged agents of the governent, more than seeing the corpses of the city's residents rising from the dead, and even more than the notion that his family members were almost certainly among them. This was real, solid and substantial. Tears slowly rolled down his face as he fought to come to grips with the death of his friend.
"I am sorry, my friend," he whispered to the body in front of him. "You deserved better than this."
"All of us do," Tanya said sadly. Although she hadn't been a close friend of either Jeremy or Jason, she seemed to be hit hard by his death. “Is he...is he going to come back? Tell me he's not going to become one of them.”
“I can't say for certain,” Jeremy said sadly. “I don't think so. Everything I've ever known or heard about zombies says that damaging the brain is the key to stopping them, and he's been shot in the head.”
"I can't believe that we even have to ask questions like that. It's one thing to know that some sort of evil has been unleashed on earth that's bent on our destruction. That's simple - we can run from that, we can fight that, we can hide from that. But this...killed by fellow human beings? How do we fight it when our destruction comes from our own kind?"
"There's no avoiding it," Jeremy said as he rose to his feet. "Power has always corrupted humans, and with society falling down around our very ears, there's no question that whoever is left with any sort of power is going to become very corrupt. That goes for both of us, too."
"So what's our choice? Get torn apart by ravenous hordes of hell-spawn or watch ourselves betray our own humanity and defile everything we should hold sacred? If that's what's going to happen, I'd almost rather take the easy way out."
"No you wouldn't," he said with a soft finality. "You want to believe that we're all good and kind at heart, and that we have some sort of soul that's going to prevent us from stooping to horrific depths.
"I know you don't want to hear this, but we don't. We're just animals - what you just saw is definitive proof of that."
"You don't even know me," Tanya's voice rose an octave as she turned on Jeremy. "Just because I think that people have hearts and souls that they can dedicate to a higher purpose doesn't mean I don't realize that those same hearts and souls can be soiled by Satan and twisted into forms that make us no better than these things that are overrunning us!"
"Can we not have a theology debate right now?" Adam broke his silence for the first time since they'd left their camp. "A friend of mine - a friend of ours - is dead. Does it matter whether he was killed by zombies or men? Does it matter if they were motivated by hate and fear, or controlled by some supernatural entity? He's dead, and he's not coming back. This is real, guys. We'd better accept that, and find a way to keep our heads in this. We need to do it for Jason, and for ourselves."
"Adam's right," Chris chimed in. "I didn't know him really well. Hell, I didn't even like him very much. That doesn't matter, though - he was a good guy in his own way, and there's no excuse for members of our military - the people we trust to rescue us and keep us safe - to have done this to him. I don't know if we can trust anyone besides ourselves anymore. I do know that I trust all of you with my life right now. Even if I thought I'd have a chance of making it to safety somewhere without you guys, I don't think I'd try. We've got to stick together, and that means no fighting. And no offense, but if anyone needs to fight, I'd rather it not be the two of us that seem to have developed superhuman powers. That makes me a little nervous. Well, more nervous that I already am, having seen my entire life crumble to pieces in a little less than 24 hours."
"I never thought I'd say this to you," Jeremy said with a ghost of a smile, "but well said. I'm sorry, Tanya. I'm sure that there will come a time when we'll look back at this and finish this discussion, but now isn't the time."
"Agreed," she said with a reconciliatory nod. "But speaking of that, what should we do now? I don't know about you, but I'm not really looking forward to spending the rest of my life camped out in in fields in the middle of nowhere."
"I've got an idea," said Adam. He had been digging around in the open back of the Jeep, and held up a piece of paper he'd found. "Listen to this - primary directive is to rescue surviving civilians. No further infected specimens are required for study - eliminate these at all opportunities. All rescued survivors are to be rallied at base camp Majesty, downtown Regina."
"I guess that tells us we're not the only survivors," Chris said.
"Not only that, but the military is studying these things and that means there's a chance that they'll find a cure," Tanya exclaimed.
"I'm not that optimistic," Jeremy grunted. "Especially if these are any indication of the sort of high-calibre individuals they have rescuing others. However, this seems like the only reasonable chance for us. If we stick around here, the best we could hope for is to survive long enough that we die of exposure in the winter months. I don't think that any of us are particularly anxious to see that happen, so I say we head for Regina and see what we can find."
The other three all murmured their assent. As their voices faded, however, the quiet murmur they had created did not. Their hushed tones reverberated and echoed, seeming to dance and spin in all directions, growing in volume and pitch until it it buzzed like a nest of hornets in their ears. As the buzzing grew to a fevered pitch, the ground beneath their feet began to buckle and churn, and a new sound, the sound of groaning and splitting rock, joined in the chorus. The ground ripped and tore like a sheet of paper, tearing open a deep fissure. As the ground gave way, the group tumbled down to the bottom of the newly-opened fissure. In the violent tumult, Jeremy lost track of his companions as he tumbled, fell, twisted around, and was bounced along the steep downward slope of the new chasm. It seemed like an eternity before the earth's rumbling settled and he rolled to a standstill, no less than fifty feet below where he had started. He groaned and stared upwards through half-closed eyes; he wasn't quite sure if he could move in the aftermath of the chaos. What he saw was amazing - the chasm that had carved itself directly through King Street and beyond was not only deep, but the walls were steep and sheer. The angle they sloped at was high enough that he did not think he would be able to scale it, even assuming that none of his bones were broken. He couldn't feel any of the telltale sharp, stabbing pains that would normally indicate this, however, and believed that he was free from any major injuries. Minor injuries, however, abounded - even without moving a muscle, he could already feel bruises swelling up all over his body, and a thick, warm fluid dripped down from his temple.
Carefully pushing himself first to his knees and then to his feet, Jeremy stood with all the grace of a newborn deer. He steadied himself against the wreckage of the soldiers' Jeep, which had come crashing down only inches from where his head had landed. He gave silent thanks that he had landed where he did; otherwise he would have been little more than a crushed smear on the crevasse floor. Once he was satisfied that he was not going to tumble the ground again, he carefully surveyed the area around where he had landed. To his horror, he saw that Adam had not been so luck in the fall as he had; the rear end of the Jeep lay atop the upper half of his unmoving body. There was no sound or movement, and Jeremy knew without a doubt that his only remaining friend had perished in the fall. A solitary tear welled up in the corner of his left eye, clearing a trail down the dirt and soot encrusted mess that covered his face. He stared blankly at the corpse, not knowing how to react anymore. He was completely and utterly drained emotionally, knowing that he should feel pain and sadness, and deep down he did; the grief at seeing the fate of both Jeremy a
nd Adam comingled, but his logical brain forced the emotions down, silencing them so that he could continue to function in some sort of meaningful way.
His other two companions seemed to have fared much better than either he or Adam had. Tanya stood up from where she had fallen, only a few dozen feet away. She appeared to be entirely uninjured, but she struggled to keep her footing amongst the loose rock and debris that dotted the uneven floor of the fissure. She quickly picked her way over to the Jeep and knelt down beside Adam's body. The Jeep shifted and moved as she pushed against it, lifting it off of Adam to reveal a body that was battered and crushed beyond nearly all recognition. She averted her gaze in horror and slowly walked to Jeremy, embracing him in an empathetic hug. Although comforted by the gesture, he found it difficult to not mention that what she undoubtedly perceived as a gentle hug carried enough force to push all of the air out of his lungs. That didn't matter to him, nor did his ragged attempts to regain his breath seem to register with Tanya as they found some small measure of comfort in each other's arms. Jeremy closed his eyes and rested his head against hers. The smell of lavender and vanilla perfume was faint, but still noticeable even after all they had already been through. For perhaps the first time in his life, his silence wasn't a result of biting his tongue to avoid castigating his peers, but because he was completely and truly speechless. In the space of only a few minutes, he had lost the only two close friends he'd really ever had. He was thankful for the comfort he found in Tanya's arms - without it, he couldn't imagine how he would react. The quiet moment was interrupted by Chris clearing his throat behind Jeremy.
"Hey, Jeremy," his voice faltered as he struggled to find any sort of words to convey feelings that he had never felt before this day. "That sucks, man. I'm sorry. I know I've always been a bit of a dick towards you guys, but I want you to know that I never wanted anything like this to ever happen. He was...well, he was a good guy."
Tanya and Jeremy released their grip on each other, and Jeremy turned his face to the sky. The orange-red streaks painted above them were beautiful and completely indifferent to the suffering that took place beneath their welcoming folds. He turned a thousand thoughts over in his mind, trying to think of how he should respond. Part of him wanted to scream at Chris, to somehow blame him for all that had happened, and to spread around the pain he was feeling. However, he swallowed those instincts, and when he spoke it was with a quiet conviction.
"We've all suffered great losses today. Just because I witnessed my two best friends die in front of me doesn't change the fact that we're all in this together. It also shouldn’t make your losses seem any less severe - you’ve both lost family and friends, and so have I, even if we haven’t actually seen the bodies yet. There's no time for grief now. We need to try to get ourselves to some sort of safety."
"I don't want to be the one to get all sciencey on you," Chris said. Even the word 'science' seemed ill at ease coming from his mouth. "But how the hell did this just happen? I thought this kind of thing could only happen during an earthquake, and we're as landlocked as you can get. Doesn't there need to be some kind of tectonic stuff going on to do this?"
"There are no fault lines here," Tanya said. "So yes, you're right that this shouldn't be possible. Of course, we've been under siege by the undead for the last day, so I think that we should probably realize that whatever we previously considered possible or impossible doesn't actually make a difference to what really is possible or impossible. In the grand scheme of things, the implausibility of walking corpses seems a little greater than an earthquake so far from where we’d normally expect to see one. I think we should consider that this is all part of the End of Days - the apocalypse."
"Don't cheapen this by making it part of some silly bronze-age superstition," Jeremy spat. "Whatever is happening has to have some sort of logical explanation. I'd lay my money on some countries going completely batshit insane and trying to stamp out the undead with nuclear weapons. Enough of that would cause all sorts of messed up geological phenomena, and could probably cause new fault lines to appear."
“Science doesn't have to explain everything,” Tanya was perplexed that Jeremy was trying so desperately to hang on to his rational beliefs. “Listen to what you're trying to say – it's perfectly normal to think that nuclear weapons are being deployed against the undead, but not that the undead are the harbingers of doom and destruction that could have a physical effect on the earth itself?”
“We also don't need to jump immediately to supernatural assumptions,” he said with a trace of a sneer. “There's no reason to believe that the zombies are anything more than the manifestations of some sort of virus or chemical mutation that's causing electrical activity to continue in a brain even after death. And yeah, I think it's more likely that military powers would resort to their most powerful weapons to stomp out that sort of a menace than it is to assume that some ridiculous backwards beliefs have any sort of basis in reality.”
"Whatever it is," Tanya said, trying to ignore Jeremy's attack on her deeply held beliefs, "we don't know, and we can't and won't know until we find somewhere that still has some means of contact with the rest of the world. We should get moving - this chasm leads north, which is where we're headed anyway. If we follow it far enough, it's got to eventually end, and we should be able to find a way to climb out of it."
The three cautiously set out along the floor of the chasm; as it proceeded northwest, it widened until it was wide enough for them to walk side by side. Most of the chasm was barren, having torn itself through an undeveloped field on the edge of town. They had been walking for nearly twenty minutes before they encountered their first obstacle - the earthquake had torn apart a conduit stuffed with underground power lines, and the severed cables still dangled out of the shattered conduit on either side of the chasm. Sparks sputtered and danced menacingly across the bare copper of the exposed wires. Jeremy cautiously stretched his hand towards the wires; he concentrated, and two thin silvery streams slipped forth from his fingers and pulled the wires safely to the side. He struggled to maintain his concentration on holding the wires at bay as the trio carefully stepped through the danger zone. When he was sure of their safety, Jeremy's concentration faltered, and the silvery strands vanished. The wires fell back into place, continuing to crackle viciously, but well out of the path of the three companions.
"So," Jeremy said, finally interrupting the silence of their march through the crevasse, "has anyone given any thought to what we're actually going to do if and when we manage to get out of this hole?"
"We're going to Regina," Chris said, sounding confused. "Right? I mean, the memo that we found back there..."
"Yes," Jeremy snapped harder than he'd intended to. "But how do we plan on getting there? In case you didn't notice, your truck and all of our supplies nearly came crashing down on our heads just now. "We're alone, mostly unarmed, and on foot; by all appearances, it seems that we are surrounded on all sides by ravenous hordes of the undead, and our nearest realistic possibility for sanctuary is over two hundred kilometers away. I don't want to be a pessimist, but this isn't exactly a winning situation."
“Mostly unarmed?” Chris said.
“Down to just two of these,” Jeremy pulled a pair of pistols from the waistband of his pants, where they’d successfully remained hidden from the soldiers. “I’d had more, but lost them in the scuffle. Still, it’s better than nothing.”
“Give me one,” Chris half-commanded, half-pleaded. “Please. You’ve got other ways of defending yourself - I’m not so lucky.”
“Fine,” Jeremy said, handing one of the pistols to Chris. He offered the other to Tanya, who gently pushed it away.
“Not my sort of thing,” she commented.
“Fair enough. So, what’s our plan?”
"We could steal a car," Tanya said. Her voice was flat and matter-of-fact.
"I never thought I'd hear those words coming from your lips," Jeremy said with a laugh. "It's probably our best hope,
though. This hole we're in is headed in the direction of the mall; assuming that it ends somewhere between here and there, we may be able to find something in the parking lot. Any preferences for the route we take?"
"There's probably a better chance of finding survivors if we go northwest through Weyburn," Tanya said after a thoughtful pause. "More population equals better chance of survival."
"It also equals more potential zombies," Chris argued. "Not to mention more traffic that could be blocking the roads. It would be suicide to head up that way.
“If we head north through Stoughton and then on to Regina we should be able to skirt around the most heavily populated areas. There's nothing but open prairie and a few small towns in our way on that route."
"Agreed," Jeremy said. "We've seen how quickly Estevan was reduced to nothing more than a hive full of undead. The chances that Weyburn has fared any better are slim to none. We should be prepared for a fight no matter which way we go, but it's far less risky to go through Stoughton than Weyburn."
"Maybe," Tanya responded, "but don't forget that Weyburn has its own police force, and is more likely to have a detachment from this armed forces base searching for survivors. Even if there's a little more risk, we could be far more useful there helping protect survivors."
"Survivors are a hopeful myth right now," Jeremy said. "We need to face it: with every minute that passes, it becomes more likely that we're the only ones left alive between here and Regina. It's an incredibly remote chance that we'll find anyone alive out there, and I don't think we should be risking all of our lives on the faint hope that we won't be killed while looking for survivors."
The Dead Rise Page 7