Year of the Dead

by Jack J. Lee

  Becky and my dad came along with me. I could see my dad was planning on staying. I went up to him and said, “Dad, there’s around 300 new people in the ward. Everyone needs you. There’s nothing you can do for me now.” I smiled at him. “Besides, I need some time alone with my girl.”

  After my dad left, Becky and I started talking. Actually, Becky talked. I just nodded and said yes when appropriate. I can’t remember anything she said. It was good to hear her voice and to touch her. We weren’t alone for long when Cheryl stormed into my cell. Even though it was dark and too dangerous to be out, no one could stop her from coming. As soon as she found out what had happened, she came over. I had been strong since my ride up here with my dad but once Becky and Cheryl starting crying, I couldn’t help myself.

  It was late. I needed to sleep. Cheryl and Becky had to sleep in another room. It was too dangerous for them to stay the night with me. The zombie virus is spread by saliva. No one knew if vomit could spread the virus, but it was too risky to take a chance of my vomiting on them by accident at night. I was exhausted and I slept without any dreams.

  The next morning, Cheryl, Becky, my dad, and I ate breakfast in my cell. Everyone was trying to be cheerful. We spent the morning talking about life before the zombie outbreak. I told Becky about how my mom and dad had often forgotten about me and left me behind at different places when I was younger. We were all laughing to the point of tears when my dad described how he had no response to my question the first time this had happened, when I was five: “Why did you leave me behind?”

  After breakfast, my dad had to go back to work. Cheryl and Becky stayed with me. One by one, most of the people who knew me came to visit. The woman whose life I’d saved and her son came by early in the day. She thanked me and so did her son. I could tell he really didn’t know what was going on. At his age he really didn’t understand death. It was good to see the people I had saved.

  It wasn’t until the afternoon that the girl I had given my jacket to came to see me. Her name was Hannah Evans and she was 13 years old. She was an orphan. It was clear she had been crying for most of the day. She brought my jacket back to me. I could tell people were blaming her for my death. If had been wearing my jacket, I wouldn’t have been bit. By the expressions on Becky’s and Cheryl’s faces, it looked like they were blaming her too. I had to stop this immediately. I told Hannah my jacket was now hers, I had given it to her freely. She hadn’t asked me for the jacket. I had seen she was cold and I chose to give it to her. I had been taking out zombies for months without needing my jacket for protection and it was just random bad luck I needed it last night.

  I told Hannah it was my calling to protect others. She had been really cold last night and I could see she was in danger of freezing. It wasn’t fair, but because I had ended up sacrificing my life for her, she was left in my debt. The only way she could repay that debt was to live a great life. She had to live her life without shame. She had to live in a righteous way. She had to grow up and have a family and do all the things I couldn’t because she owed me. I told her I had no regrets and would do everything the same all over again. I looked at Cheryl and Becky. I said, “If people treat you badly because of me, if you blame yourself because of me, you and they will be throwing away my life and my sacrifice.” I asked Cheryl and Becky to accompany Hannah back to the ward and make sure that if people blamed Hannah for my death, they knew they were demeaning my life. All three of the girls were crying as they left. I didn’t cry. I wasn’t sad; I was exhausted.

  A couple of years ago I had played a video game that had a Japanese samurai theme. Once you got to a certain level and you died, there was a voice-over saying “Death is lighter than a feather. Duty is heavier than a mountain.” It was just background noise back then. Now I knew what this saying meant. I’d wanted to be a hero, and I was one, but it was hard. In a couple of days my struggles would be over. I didn’t want to die, but it would be good to be able to lay my burdens down. If I wasn’t a dead man walking, I would never have been able to understand how true that saying was.

  I wasn’t able to rest for long. Everyone I knew wanted to see me and say goodbye. I understood it was necessary for all the people who cared for me to say goodbye. It was hard for me but I tried to really listen to all of them. Cheryl and Becky were around the most. Both of them decided they would tell me everything that they needed to. Becky especially was trying to fit the conversations of a lifetime with me in the few days I had left. It would have been easy to blank out, like most men do when their female loved ones talk to them about emotions for more than a few minutes, but I tried my best not to. After about two minutes of hearing about female emotions, it was hard to keep my mind from wandering. My life was no longer a marathon. I didn’t have to pace myself. I could sprint for a few days. I loved Becky and Cheryl. It was important for them to tell me everything. I listened. At first Becky and Cheryl had been angry with Hannah, but it was clear they had taken my wishes to heart. Both of them had semi adopted her. She was an orphan, and she needed people to look after her.

  It was hard talking with my father. He had lost his wife and probably my oldest sister as well. I felt like I had let him down. We didn’t talk about our feelings or what could have been. He visited most meal times, and on those occasions we reminisced about my mom and my two sisters who weren’t here. We didn’t have much time and we both felt better remembering our family together.

  There were only two people I felt like I could relax with, such that I didn’t have to work to be the dying hero because they didn’t treat my death as a tragedy. They were the Director and Sergeant Rockwell. It’s hard describing the Director because when you do, he doesn’t seem real. He seemed to know everything and be able to do everything. Yeah, Frank Burns was a better shot but you got the feeling that if the Director wanted to, he would be able to beat Frank. Sergeant Rockwell outweighed the Director by a hundred pounds and was close to twenty years younger, but when they sparred, more often than not the Director would win. No one besides the Sergeant got even close to giving the Director a challenge when sparring. I had seen the state of the Riverside ward; if it weren’t for the Director we probably would have been in the same sorry mess.

  He had made it clear from the first that he wouldn’t be satisfied with just restoring our community but he planned on restoring our nation. Being around him was like being with George Washington or King David of the Bible. He only visited me once, but it was enough. When he entered my room I stood up to salute. The Sergeant is an ex-ranger and was old-school about saluting officers when we weren’t in the Field. The Director was our only officer. The Director told me to stand down even before I could start my salute. I stood there waiting for him to explain. He then caught my eyes and slowly he saluted me.

  It dawned on me then that the Director was showing me respect. I saluted him back. He told me every elite fighting force had heroes who were remembered forever. I would be one of them. I was the first SaLT to die on duty and I had sacrificed myself to defend helpless civilians and I would be remembered because of this. He told me the SaLTs’ highest medal for bravery would be named the Bingham. We lived in the time of legends. We needed heroes and martyrs that would stand as symbols of what we as a re-born community, and eventually a nation, all aspired to be. It happened that I was our first martyr. We both knew there was every chance in the world the Director would follow me into martyrdom. The Director led every battle from the front. The Director wasn’t treating me like a Private. He treated me like an equal who had done what was necessary. He wasn’t trying to reward me or boost my ego. He was telling me, simply as a courtesy, that what I had done would not be wasted.

  The Sergeant visited me every day. Sergeant Rockwell was a hero, but in a completely different way than Director Jones. The Director did everything effortlessly; Sarn’t worked for everything, but he worked so hard he was almost superhuman in everything he thought was important. He just didn’t think that many things were important. The Direc
tor was our leader; Sarn’t was the rock, the foundation that we all depended on. The Sergeant was surprisingly good with both Cheryl and Betsy. I found out he had seven older sisters. When he wanted to, he had social skills. It’s just that most times, he didn’t want to. The Sergeant and I didn’t talk much. We didn’t have to.

  The Sergeant knew death was always a possibility for a soldier. For Sarn’t, it wasn’t a tragedy to die. It was only a tragedy to die uselessly. The most important thing to him was to do the right thing regardless of the consequences. He assumed I was like him; amazingly, I was. Sarn’t knew how hard it was for me to spend the last few days surrounded by people who loved me. Having at least one person around who knew what I was going through helped. As the days passed, I started getting more and more fatigued. My body started aching and by the third day, every movement caused me pain. I was used to pain; after a day on patrol carrying all our gear and running up-to-twenty miles, I always hurt. It wasn’t difficult to hide how much pain I was in.

  Until the 22nd, I was unsure when I woke up whether it would be the last day of my life. I woke up on November 22nd knowing for certain that on this day, I would die. No one lasted more than four days after a zombie bite. My father started an IV for me and attached a syringe full of medications that would kill me quickly. This last day was reserved for me, Cheryl, Becky, and my dad. At my request, no one else visited. In the morning I explained to them I didn’t want them to see me vomiting; that wasn’t how I wanted them to remember me. I told them I would take my life when I started feeling nauseated. It wasn’t suicide. I was already dead. For the rest of the morning, it was easiest to talk about the past. We all laughed again at my response to Becky telling me she loved me. “That’s nice” was so stupid.

  I knew it was time when I started getting nauseated.

  “Becky, Cheryl, Dad, I love you. I have no regrets. I’m not afraid.”

  I pushed the syringe in. I was so tired. It was good to rest.

  Chapter 34: Jim Wright, November 1st to November 25th, Year 1

  I had gotten into a routine for a few weeks until the rescue of the Riverside ward on the 18th. Almost all the zombies were gone from the Sugar House area. A handful of zombies were found daily in the traps that had been set up in the neighborhood. We had not been attacked by vampires, or even seen evidence of a vampire, since the October 10th attack.

  One of the men in the ward, Evan Meese, was using salvaged drilling equipment to dig wells for people who had moved out of the ward house. Helen Hansen proved again that she was irreplaceable. She was able to figure out how to re-wire the drilling equipment so it could work. She was now taking part-ownership, rather than cash, of the companies that needed her to get their equipment working again. She was probably going to be the richest person on earth.

  Everyone who had a well was now on the hook to pay Evan a small amount every month for the next thirty years. Because of Evan, people going back to living in houses had access to running water. The first well Evan dug was at the ward so now everyone could take real heated showers again. Most ward members who had families were starting to move back into their own homes. Homes where the owners were dead or could not be found were declared to be the property of Salt Lake City and could be bought at auction from the City. We had 100-percent employment. General contractors were constantly looking for more people to help fortify homes.

  There weren’t enough working generators yet for everyone who’d returned to a house to have power, but it wasn’t that hard to salvage full propane tanks. Gas grills were not only used to cook food but to heat homes. It was easy to find full propane tanks or get them refilled from propane tanks at the local gas stations.

  Almost everyone had thought Mark had been crazy when he wanted us to vote in council members and a judge, but once again he proved he was crazy like a fox. With all the companies that were being formed and all the building and work that was being done, people were constantly getting into disputes. Lee Singer had thought he was going to be a part-time judge. He ended up being a full-time arbiter. It turns out Mark, or whoever advised Mark, to pick Lee Singer was a good judge of character. Judge Singer was doing a good job.

  John Black had been an accountant prior to the outbreak. Mark had gotten to know John well during the time John and his family had been living at Mark’s house. Mark created the First Federal Bank of Utah and appointed John to be head of the bank. It was John’s responsibility to keep track of all the money that was being used in our community. Mark had personally signed enough dollar bills that small transactions like buying food and minor odds-and-ends could be done with cash, but all major transactions had to be done through the bank because Mark had not signed a large-enough amount of bills. This made it easy for the bank to collect taxes. Eventually it became the norm that barter and cash transactions were not taxed but all large transactions that had to go through the bank were. Everyone in our community now had an account at the bank. Guys like Evan who were being paid slowly over time got their money directly deposited into their accounts.

  As both our mayor and our only physician, Art Bingham was working twenty-hour days making sure all our citizens needing medical attention were being taken care of. Alan Redding was a registered nurse and helped Art out. One of our councilmen, Hank Miller, was a pharmacist. The three of them were responsible for keeping our community healthy. We no longer had anyone alive with chronic illnesses. Everyone who needed to take medications daily to stay healthy was already dead, but with all the construction and manufacturing being done, there was a constant flow of accident-related injuries that needed treatment.

  The council members were as busy as Art, running their own private businesses and meeting for council business. Every person that refused to accept Judge Singer’s decisions appealed to the council. The council had to decide what businesses got government loans. Art, all the council members, and Judge Singer always looked tired. On the other hand, Mark looked like he was having the time of his life. He was constantly going out on patrol with the SaLTs or messing around with gadgets he found interesting. If anyone ever bothered him about anything, he always pointed them to one of the elected officials. It was just like Mark. He was still our leader. Whatever he wanted he got and he had arranged things so he didn’t have to deal with any of the boring or tedious parts of leading a community.

  All I had to do was make sure my company was producing enough suppressed rifles. Once the design issues were taken care of, my company pretty much ran itself. My belly wound was healing. Cheryl was an overwhelming force. There was nothing I could do to resist her. The only chance I had was if she got bored with me, so I went with the flow. My head said this was a bad idea and it would never work; my heart said I was in love with her. Being conflicted like this gave me the freedom to be completely honest with Cheryl and be myself. I didn’t try to fake being a better guy. I didn’t hide the fact I was falling in love with her and I thought this was a really bad idea. Cheryl is a fun, beautiful girl. She was used to men trying desperately to attract her and telling her that they loved her. I guess I was different enough she found me interesting.

  I was sleeping in a men’s dormitory room in the ward but I was seriously considering moving back to my house. I had a working generator. My house was already zombie-proof and if I got Evan Meese to dig a well for me, I would have running water. I was thinking about hiring a general contractor to make my house vampire-proof.

  Shortly after dusk on November 18th, we got word the SaLTs had rescued the Riverside ward and they were on the road walking back to us. Art Bingham called up all the reserves, which was basically every able-bodied man who could hold a gun plus Helen Hansen. Helen was our resident feminist and she refused to accept that women couldn’t do anything as well as men. To give her credit, in her particular case she was right. The other women supported Helen in principle, but no other woman wanted to be in the reserves.

  We commandeered every truck we had gotten running again and hitched up every trailer we
had and drove south to meet the SaLTs. None of this had been anticipated and the whole process was completely chaotic. Peter Bingham, Cheryl’s younger brother, got bit by a zombie during the rescue. He was a good kid and she was completely broken up about it. Losing both her mom and her brother in such a short time was really hard on her. I didn’t know what to say. I tried to be supportive.

  I really think that if Art hadn’t been mayor—he was the man in charge of incorporating close to 300 more people, mostly women and children, into our community—he would have lost it. Art didn’t break down because he couldn’t; he was needed. One of the few bright spots for Art of rescuing the Riverside ward was that we now had a Bishop. Jerry Maple was one of the two adult men who had survived. It wasn’t a big deal to me to not have a Bishop around, but it had been a big issue for the ward members. Art Bingham is a deeply religious man and I could tell having Bishop Maple around was a great source of comfort to him. If we had waited two more days to rescue the Riverside ward, all the men including the Bishop would have been killed by the vampire. Ed Samuelson, the other surviving Riverside man, was a complete psychological wreck. He’d been so certain he was going to die he didn’t know how to handle being alive. He was almost catatonic. Bishop Maple had the opposite psychological response. He said he was convinced he had been saved for a reason and he dedicated himself to trying to help and counsel the rest of our community.

  That first night, everyone thought we would be attacked by the vampire that had been feeding on the Riverside Ward. We weren’t. Maybe the vampire thought we were too tough a nut to crack. Before we had rescued the Riverside ward, everyone, including me, had gotten complacent about the vampire danger. I put my ideas about moving back to my house on hold, and a couple of the people who had already moved out of the ward moved back in. The stories the Riverside survivors told were horrific. Their vampire liked to torture men before it killed them. We had one experience with vampires on October 10th and we had all seen how fast the vampires could move and how dangerous they were, but our vampires had all been killed before they had a chance to play with us. The Riverside ward hadn’t been so lucky.