“Are you OK?” He didn’t know what else he could ask. For what felt like the millionth time in the last several days, he was thrust into a situation that was so bizarre, so utterly beyond his comprehension that language didn’t seem able to convey what he really felt.
“I...no,” Tanya whispered hoarsely. “That hurt...a lot. I think it’s over now, though.”
Cautiously, she rose to her feet, and was surprised when her legs did not betray her.
“Well,” she said with mild astonishment, “that’s odd.”
“What?” Jeremy was confused - he’d assumed that not falling to the ground was a good thing.
“I just feel so...I don’t know, so steady. Like one of those statues on Easter Island - you know, the big heads stuck in the ground?”
“That’s an odd analogy,” Michael said, “but I suppose it could be worse. Hey, that sword seems to have turned our boy here into a walking Ginsu set, so maybe that scale is turning into an internal gyroscope - keeping your balance?”
“That seems -” Tanya was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass from the lounge. The group rushed to the room to see what was going on, Jeremy guiding Tanya with a hand on her arm, not intending to let her fall if her newfound balance failed her.
Inside the lounge, the worst-case scenario was starting to unfold: a thick crowd of zombies could be seen behind the now-shattered patio doors, hamming away at the table barricade with their rotting fists. Although the barricade was holding, it shook and shuddered with every blow, and was clearly not going to last long.
Chapter 8
Day 6 – 02:00:00 CST
Downtown Regina
“Damnit!” Michael exclaimed, dashing off towards the front door. Luna followed suit, but not before getting in a verbal jab.
“So much for a safe haven,” she said bitterly.
“Front exit is no good,” Michael dashed back to them with Luna trailing behind. “We’re surrounded.”
“What are our options?” Tanya asked. “Make a run for it? Fight our way through the crowd? Put our backs to the wall and fight it out?”
“That many of them out there means that running would be suicide,” Michael offered. “Trying to fight them off while you run would just slow you down. Making a stand in here pretty much guarantees that we’re dead, too - too many to fight, and not enough room to maneuver.”
“So our choices are to die fighting or die running?” Tanya was crestfallen.
“Or we find another exit,” Luna said, pointing upwards.
“The roof,” Jeremy nodded with a smile. “Can you get us up there, Michael? At least we’d have a fighting chance.”
“Yeah, there should be access through here,” Michael gestured for them to follow and stepped into a side room off the lounge. It was a cramped office, with a flight of stairs leading up in the back. After fleeing up the narrow staircase and through storage rooms crammed with boxes, posters, and fliers, they finally reached a hatch labelled “ROOF”. In blue marker, someone had updated the text to say “ROOFies are fun!”, allowing Jeremy a brief snicker despite the overwhelming tension of the moment. Michael climbed a small metal ladder up to the hatch and shook it, but a heavy steel padlock prevented it from opening. He fumbled with his keyring, but was unable to find a matching key for the lock. He jumped down from the ladder and Tanya climbed up, grasping the lock firmly in her right hand and giving it a solid tug that snapped the lock’s bracket clear off of the hatch, popping it open with ease. She ascended, followed by Jeremy, then Luna, then Michael.
The roof was cold, and a sharp wind blew across it that chilled them all to the bone. In the distance, the horizon was starting to lighten up, although the sun had not yet risen. From their perch atop the roof, they could see hundreds of zombies swarming the streets below, hammering at the building with fists and bloody stumps.
“OK, we’re up here,” Tanya said, gesturing at the streets below, “now what?”
“I don’t think anyone thought farther than that,” Luna said. Her demeanour had turned serious; any trace of inebriation was gone, and her face was tightly drawn with concentration.
“We can try jumping across the rooftops,” Michael pointed at the adjacent building. The gap was on a few feet wide. “But once we get across to the next building, we’re not much better off. After it is the street corner, and I don’t think we’re going to be able to make the jump across the street. We could make our way down to the street from there, but as soon as we step out into the open, we’re zombie-bait.”
“Is anyone else sick of running?” Jeremy pounded his fist against a roof-mounted air conditioning unit in frustration. The hollow ringing as loud and clear, reverberating throughout the entire building. “Tanya and I have been on the run for...I don’t even know how long it’s been anymore. Wherever we go, there’s something new and dangerous waiting to rip our heads off and shit down our necks. I can’t keep doing this!”
“Not like we have much of a choice, bucko,” Michael said with a sad smile. He obviously sympathized with Jeremy’s frustration, but still retained his realism. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly a born fighter. I wouldn’t last a minute toe-to-toe with those things down there.”
There was no response from Jeremy for a moment. A thick, fluttering Canadian flag hanging off the office building next door had caught his eye, and an idea began to form in his mind. When he spoke, a grin began to slowly dawn across his face as he realized just what he had to do.
“Then we don’t go toe-to-toe,” he said. Telekinetic force reached out from his body, grasping the flag and pulling it off the flagpole. The flag fluttered horizontally towards him, held aloft by a disc of ethereal telekinetic force and looking for all the world like a flying carpet. Jeremy stepped on gingerly, cautiously ensuring it would accept his weight, and his grin broadened when it did. In a flash, the carpet sped forwards and banked down , approaching the street head-on and descending towards the writhing mass of undead below. Once again, a pair of vicious blades appeared in his hands, swirling into existence in a silvery cloud. As his ride swooped down into the crowd, he swung the blades with all the force he could muster; a telekinetic barrier in front of his flag-carriage ploughed aside zombies in front of him, while his swords snickered through the rotting flesh of the undead to his sides. He cut a long, straight swathe through the crowd, which was swiftly filled in by the pressing crowd of undead as they surged forwards to cover the ground their companions had lost. Having flown nearly a block from where he started, Jeremy banked his ride and turned around, taking a second pass through the thick crowd of undead, with similar results, and rose back up to the rooftops in a fountain of congealed blood and body parts that trickled off the flag, showering the zombies below.
“Get the idea?” He said, his grin having turned into a savage snarl.
“That looks unbelievably therapeutic,” Michael said with an approving nod.
“I can’t recommend it enough,” Jeremy said with a crazed giggle. “Seems like a good morning for a barbeque, right?”
“Never better,” Michael held his hands aloft, and a burst of flame flared outwards.
“Looks like we’re going to need to keep these dummies from getting hurt,” Luna said, a genuine smile playing across her face for the first time all night. “Are you ready, girl?”
“God commands me not to kill,” Tanya said quietly. She stepped forward to stare down the side of the building at the undead crowd below. “But I suppose that commandment doesn’t really apply when I’m fighting something that’s already dead.”
Jeremy stepped back on his flag-ride, making enough room for his three companions. As they all settled on to the flag, it lazily arced down past the farthest edge of the zombie crowd, dropping them off on the road several dozen feet away from the nearest zombie.
“Are you all ready for this?” Jeremy’s voice was strong and steady. A newfound courage gripped him, something he’d never felt before - a confidence that they were
unstoppable, powerful, and righteous. His companions all nodded, sharing his newfound calm. “Good. Here’s the situation: we’ve been running scared for days, and that’s just wrong. We’re not frightened schoolchildren. Not anymore, anyway. We’re not weak. We’re not society’s rejects. We are goddamned superheroes, and it’s time we started to act like it.”
As his voice rose in volume and intensity, it attracted the attention of the zombie horde. They didn’t stop, or even hesitate, but turned and began shambling towards the group, intent on their newfound targets. The gravity of their approach was somewhat lessened by the burned-out shell of a car that suddenly flew over Jeremy’s head, tumbling end-over-end to land amidst the horde, crushing a number of the undead, and scattering even more of them. Jeremy turned to look at Tanya, who had a sheepish smile on her face. He grinned and winked at her, and took a small measure of satisfaction in the blush that spread across her face.
Bringing his swords to the ready, Jeremy dashed into the middle of the crowd. He suddenly leaped into the air with a telekinetic-propelled jump, carrying three zombies in the air around him. He twisted and flipped, his swords whistling through the air to slice apart the creatures. His blades bifurcated the first zombie, cutting through rotting skin, muscle, and bone with ease; as he rotated in the air, he beheaded the second zombie, simultaneously splitting its head in two with his second sword even as it peeled away from the remains of its neck; black ichor and foul-smelling grey tissue splattered over him as both of his blades pierced the chest of the final zombie. He pulled the blades horizontally, tearing through ribs and skin to utterly eviscerate the helpless creature. It still fumbled and groaned even as its innards dropped unceremoniously to the ground, though its flailing was soon ended by a sword slicing the head clean in half.
As soon as Jeremy’s body left the ground, Michael and Luna simultaneously unleashed blasts of flame and ice; each washed over half of the horde to great effect - those caught by Luna’s ice blast froze in place, ultimately shattering as Tanya pelted them with chunks of concrete and debris salvaged from the street, while those caught by Michael’s flames seared into nothingness, flesh melting off in crisp black waves, carrying flecks of black ash into the air. Unsupported by muscle or tendons, and with brains rapidly melting, their bodies crumbled and collapsed.
Even as Jeremy fell back to the ground amidst the carnage wrought by their combined assault, another wave of zombies approached, some flooding out from inside the buildings, others from alleys and side streets. The battle raged on for what felt like eternity; the sun’s feeble rays finally broke the horizon to provide light for their fight, revealing a scene of terrible destruction as the last visible zombie fell under the brutal assault of one of Luna’s cold-blasts, cracking and shattering into tiny flesh-icicles that shriveled and finally fell still. The nearby buildings were aflame, ravaged by the effects of Michael’s fiery blasts, while massive chunks of the road had been torn up by Tanya, and massive structural damage had been inflicted on the surrounding buildings by the shrapnel from her hurled missiles. A river of blood coursed down the street, congealed into a thick black sludge that weaved slowly around the heaped corpses, shattered bones, and severed hunks of tissue that clogged the road.
“How was that for therapy?” Luna cracked in Michael’s direction.
“Oh, honey, that was better than coming out to my parents,” he said with a wink. “I’d say I need a cigarette, but I don’t think it’d be a great idea to contribute to the smoke problem around here.”
“It certainly could be hazardous to our health,” Jeremy said with a laugh, kicking the severed head of a zombie over to Michael like a soccer ball. It landed with a thud-splat in front of him, its eyeballs popping under the pressure, splattering clear liquid out across the pavement and leaving its face in a grotesque mockery of a human face.
“Yeah, I’d sure hate to endanger my health,” Michael said, grimacing at the skull at his feet. “Destroying a city block, and hundreds of undead along with it, on the other hand...”
“Perfectly normal and acceptable,” Tanya interrupted with a smile. She’d enjoyed the carnage more than she was willing to let on.
“My goodness,” Michael said, feigning astonishment. “Does our good girl mean to say that maybe a little mayhem isn’t such a bad thing after all?”
“I’m just doing the Lord’s work,” she said, sticking her tongue out in Michael’s direction. Emboldened by the adrenaline rush of combat, she slipped her hand over Jeremy’s and gave him a peck on the cheek. It was his turn to blush now. “And if that means a little chaos here and there for the greater good, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“Lord’s work or not,” Jeremy said, recovering from his surprise at Tanya’s open display of affection, “I think it’s time we get moving. Even on foot we can be at the Legislature within an hour - maybe two or three if we run into trouble.”
The road stretched out in front of them, finally sunlight and bright, and eerily silent. Beyond the flaming buildings, the abandoned cars, and the silent streets, lay hope - hope that others were still alive, that they could help humanity, and that they could find sanctuary from the undead assault.
Chapter 9
Day 6 – 05:00:00 CST
Wascana Lake, Regina
The journey through the heart of the city was slow and nerve-wracking. Every whistle of the wind, every tinkle of distant wind chimes, every sound in the distance that could be heard and not immediately explained caused the party to fall in to a combat stance. Jeremy wasn’t entirely sure whether he should have been relieved or disappointed when they made it to the shores of Wascana Lake without incident.
Wascana Lake was a man-made lake in the middle of the city, a scenic offset for a park that was once a favourite picnic and leisure spot for people who wanted to relax in the sun and enjoy a great view. On the opposite side of the lake stood the Legislature, an imposing green-and-white structure decorated with intricately carved columns and artwork, and which had once stood as a beautiful architectural achievement in a city that was otherwise severely lacking in that department. Even from across the lake, sandbags could be seen forming a perimeter around the building. Massive tanks flanked the roadways on either side of the building, and artillery cannons had been set up at regular intervals behind the sandbags. Despite the impressive military presence, there was no sign of any activity - the guns were unmanned, the wall of sandbags unpatrolled, and the tanks were silent. Even from the distance across the lake, they could clearly read the massive sign that had been erected atop the Legislature - “Fort Majesty”, and in smaller print below that “All Living Welcome”.
“Thoughts?” Tanya asked nobody in particular.
“Looks quiet,” Michael remarked.
“Not a good sign,” Luna sighed.
“Not a bad one, either,” Jeremy said. “Looks like the building is pretty isolated; chances are that they’re keeping everyone inside the fortifications and watching surveillance cameras - no sense in having people standing at attention outside, unless it’s to scream out ‘here are some snacks’ for any zombies nearby.”
“So where does that leave us?” Tanya asked. “Do we just walk up and ring the doorbell.”
“I was thinking of something a little more...dramatic,” Jeremy said with a sly smile. Before he could elaborate on what he meant, however, Michael tripped, falling backwards from the edge of the water, yelping in surprise.
“What happened?” Luna asked.
“I saw something under the water,” Michael said, his voice shaking. “Something big. Whatever it was, it moved fast...it was a dark blur, there one second and gone the -”
The surface of the water rippled and bubbled, and an enormous head rose above the surface of the water, carried aloft by a serpentine scaled neck and an unseen body. The greyish-green skin of the creature was covered in thick scales, and its face looked like something straight out of a fantasy painting - draconian features were accented by a missing eye, the empt
y socket surrounded by a web of scars, and the remaining eye was a narrow slit of baleful red with a reptilian black pupil that stared down at them in judgement. The creature’s mouth was partly open, and Jeremy could see row upon row of razor-sharp fangs; a forked tongue flicked across them and the creature hissed.
“That’s...” Jeremy’s voice trailed off into confused silence. “What is that?”
“Do we...do we kill it?” Michael didn’t sound eager at the prospect.
“That thing looks like it could swallow me whole,” Tanya said, unable to tear her eyes away from the magnificent and terrifying creature. “I don’t think that provoking it is the right idea.”
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. The creature stared them down with that single baleful eye, its gaze burning deep into their souls. Its assessment - its judgement - of them complete, the mouth of the massive creature opened wide, and it made a sound that could not be explained. Half screech, half speech, it carried distinct meaning to them, forming a solid meaning in their minds even without words. The impression was dank and foul, a deep inner violation that lingered even as the creature vanished beneath the surface of the water again.
“Am I the only one who?” Luna couldn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t know how to express the foreboding dread that the screech had instilled in her. Even the meaning didn’t take form in words that she could express.
The Dead Rise Page 16