American Revenant (Book 2): Settlers and Sorrow

by Davis IV, John L.

  Jan was standing over Sam, examining the wound when his eyes fluttered, then opened fully. She was worried about the flaring redness around the wound, as well as Sam’s increased temperature.

  “Mom? What’s going on?” Sam tried to look around but the movement of his neck and head pulled at the wound, causing him to cry out.

  “You were out with Mike and Jimmy yesterday. A man stabbed you. Do you remember?”

  Gordy and Anna were on the other side of Sam, Gordy with his arm around his daughter’s shoulder. Quiet tears fell from Anna’s eyes, while Gordy fought hard to keep his back.

  “Yeah, I remember now. Sumbitch stabbed me good,” Sam said, his tongue feeling thick and dry. “Are Mike and Jimmy ok?”

  “Yes, they’re fine, though I think they may have nearly broken that car getting you back here.”

  Sam was already fading back into sleep when he said, “Good guys, Mom, but better not break my car.” The last few words were nearly unintelligible.

  Gordy went outside to let the group know that Sam had woken up, spoken for a moment and fallen back to sleep. Many felt a sense of relief, but as a whole the group’s spirits were low, and few people had the heart to go about the day’s normal routine.

  Dinner that night was simple, and sparse. No one felt like eating. Jan would not leave Sam’s side, sending Anna for Gordy shortly after meal time.

  Gordy rushed back to the dispensary and clinic, his heart already beating rapidly. Jan was standing over Sam when he walked through the door. She had the bandage peeled back from the wound and was examining it closely. Gordy could see rivulets of sweat running down Sam’s face and chest.

  “Jan?”

  She looked over her shoulder at Gordy, her lips pressed tightly together. “Something’s wrong here. His fever should be going down, not up. He’s at 103 degrees right now. He’s in extreme pain, and the strongest painkillers I have don’t seem to help much. I don’t know what’s happening, Gordon.”

  Jan’s voice was cracking and Gordy put an arm around her, unsure of what to do. “Where’s the knife that he was stabbed with?”

  “Over on that tray, I haven’t had time to get rid of it yet.”

  Gordy picked up the knife by the handle, held it close to an oil lamp and turned it slowly, looking closely at the blade. “Janet…Oh God, Janet…”

  Jan looked at him, fear leaping up to take its place in her throat as a large painful lump. The look of sick terror her husband wore brought it all into sharp reality. “The knife…”

  Gordy looked back at her, “Yes, the knife. It was poisoned. It had zombie blood or saliva on it. Sam is…he’s…God, Janet…”

  Gordon Fletcher was unable to finish his thought; any words would be insufficient to express every emotion inside him just then. Janet began to cry, her sobs painful and real; the weeping of someone truly heartbroken.

  Gordon stared at the knife in his hand, seeing every single detail, from the textured grip, to the blood staining the blade. The blood was not just his son’s blood. It was the blood of something that had once been human, blood that had tainted the blade and passed on something far worse than death to his son.

  Gordon did not realize he was screaming; he could only hear the shattering sound his heart made when he realized that his son was going to die. Gordon did not realize that he had thrown the knife in all its offensiveness across the small room, putting every ounce of anger into the throw. He also did not notice when he sank to the floor, the ever-present pain in his knee forgotten, as it was buried by the far more real pain in his heart.

  People came bursting in, Sam’s blood relatives, followed quickly by his extended family. The small building filled quickly, but no one pushed anyone out. Grief, in its purest form, is something that must be shared. When one person alone bears that kind of grief it can be enough to destroy them, but if that unrelenting sadness can be divided with more than one person, then each can carry a smaller piece of it, making the burden easier to bear, within the hardship.

  The following day was difficult for everyone. Decisions had to be made amidst the pain and sorrow everyone felt. Rick took charge of the situation, speaking to the Fletcher family. Once they had agreed that to protect the group all bodies must be burned, Rick gathered everyone able to help.

  A massive pyre was built at the corner of Saverton Drive and Okotipi Drive to reduce the risk of catching anything else on fire.

  The entire camp was gathered at the pyre, but no one could speak. The silence was heavy as Sam’s wrapped body was carefully lifted to the top. Everyone wanted to say something, and no one could say anything.

  Once everything was in place, the group stepped back as Gordy and Jan held hands, clasping the torch they would use to light the funeral pyre of their son between them. They stood quietly, silent tears filling every eye.

  Jan and Gordy would never talk about what they had done for Sam that day; how they had held the knife they used to end his life clasped the same way they now held the torch. They burned that memory with the same pyre they used to burn the remains of their son.

  Chapter 15

  The next few weeks were dismal for everyone. People went about the motions of day to day life. Work on the wall continued, but at a much slower pace. Children were taught, meals were eaten, but the spirit of the Camp was one of quiet despair. Sam’s death had deeply scarred the morale of the group.

  Jimmy and Mike returned to clearing out the houses, (which they stopped calling Grab-n-Stab) joined by Rick and Calvin. Using both vehicles currently available to them they made quick work of cleaning out the homes of everything the family of survivors could use to get through the winter.

  In their full searches of the houses they found several more working vehicles, as well as power equipment such as chainsaws and another generator. They found a lot of food, though they were still uncertain if it would get everyone through a long hard winter.

  They were most surprised that they found no other survivors in the tiny town.

  Gordy spent much of his time hunting in the surrounding woods. Though it was his desire to be left alone, the rules of the group would not allow him to go out by himself. He often asked Jack to come along with him, mostly because Jack had stopped talking to people in everything but one word sentences.

  He killed two deer in as many weeks, Jack helping him to gut and drag the carcasses back to camp. A hot meal of fresh venison, along with canned vegetables from Jonathan’s basement, and fresh baked bread went a long way towards lifting the spirits of the camp. Few things could connect, or re-connect people like a shared meal of comfort foods.

  Though it would take a long time for the wounds to heal, people began to talk to one another again, sharing thoughts and feelings, along with the occasional laugh.

  One evening as the adults sat up around a small fire, Jan asked a question to Mike and Jimmy.

  “When you killed those men, the ones trying to steal your bicycles, you said that the big guy whose neck was broken became a zombie almost right away, correct?”

  “Yeah, I would say it took less than a minute or two,” Jimmy answered. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m just wondering how this virus or whatever it is works.”

  “Without proper research facilities and the people who understand that stuff, we’ll probably never know,” Calvin said.

  “I know, son,” Jan told him, “but if the sickness that killed so many at the beginning of this has burned out, which it seems to have done, then where does this virus come from? Was it somehow carried in on the sickness, and left behind after? Is it just floating around in the air now, infecting every single person? Are we all going to turn into these undead things when we die?”

  “I see what you’re getting at, Jan,” Gordy told his wife. “If we didn’t get the sickness, are we still somehow infected with whatever it is that turns people into gut-suckers?”

  “Exactly, that guy whose neck you broke reanimated shortly after that. Jonathan’s wife died from
a fever after a bite, then came back.” Jan paused, thinking about Sam, not wanting to mention his name at all in this conversation for fear of making feelings worse, especially for herself. “We’ve seen what happens if zombie effluvium is introduced to the body without a bite.”

  Everyone was able to keep thinly veiled emotions in check, though Anna did get up and walk away from the group.

  “It seems that if people die, no matter how they die, they will turn into one of them. It also appears that a bite from one of them is infectious with something other than the zombie disease.” Jan looked at those around the campfire, silently asking for opinions.

  “So we don’t get bitten,” Jimmy said. “We need to make more of the bite guards that we’ve been wearing on our clearing runs. Everyone should wear them at all times if they go more than a few feet from the Camp.”

  “Very true, Jimmy, but I would still like to know what the zombies carry that make everyone so sick from the bite. I would also like to know if there is a way to cure the pathogen that causes people to reanimate after death.”

  Gordy looked at his wife closely, asking, “If we got you the equipment, and somehow made it work, would you know what to look for?”

  “I’m not a pathologist, but I might be able to isolate it.”

  “Are you saying you could cure zombies?” Rick asked.

  “No, once they’ve reanimated the brain is too far gone to repair. You guys already know the only cure for a zombified human.”

  Jack sat with the others around the fire, just listening, watching these people that had so easily adopted him into their family when Jimmy had first introduced him to the group. He listened, keeping all his feelings to himself.

  ****

  Jimmy and Tam were out walking the perimeter of the camp late the next morning when they came across Jack sitting with his back against a tree.

  “Jack, what’s up, man?”

  Jack looked up at Jimmy and Tamara, standing over him.

  “Nothing, just wanted some time to think. Thought I would come sit out here for a while, where it’s quiet.”

  “You know the rule about going anywhere alone,” Jimmy told him. “I’d really hate to come out here and find a zombie munching your face, brother.”

  Jack winced, Jimmy’s words cutting right to the heart of his thoughts.

  Tam nudged Jimmy’s arm with her elbow, letting him know he may have gone just a bit too far with the comment. He knew he had when he saw the look on Jack’s face.

  “Hey, what’s going on, Jack? You can talk to us.”

  “Thanks Tam, but I really don’t feel like talking.” Jack spoke without looking up from the stick he was carving on with his pocket knife. He had stripped nearly all the bark from it, and was slowly sharpening it to a fine point.

  “Jack, buddy, come on, we’re…”

  “Listen, I said I don’t feel like talking. I want to sit here, alone in the damn woods, and whittle a stick. Is that ok with you?” Jimmy could hear the anger and tension in Jack’s voice, could see it on his face, but he also heard an undertone of desperation.

  Instead of responding Jimmy leaned up against a tree opposite of Jack, and slid down to sit on the thick mat of leaves. He looked at Tam, asking with his eyes if she would just let Jack talk.

  Jimmy let the heavy silence hang in the air, waiting for his friend to speak. Tam stepped quietly to the side, leaning against another tree, out of Jack’s direct line of sight.

  Turning to look at Tam, then Jimmy, Jack let out a long sigh and hung his head. “I don’t know if I can do this, Jimmy. I don’t know if I even want to. Actually, that’s a lie; I do know that I don’t want to do this.”

  Jimmy kept his tongue, afraid to interject a question of any kind into Jack’s line of thought.

  “I told you about my wife, and how she died. The cancer, and the long months of pain. Just before the end she was so wasted, both physically and mentally. Most of the time, right at the end, she didn’t recognize me. She would lay there in that bed, staring right through me, and every once in a while she would try to lift her arm, her fingers just twitching before falling back to the bed.

  “That’s what I see every time I see one of these damn zombies. The sunken blank eyes, that vacant stare, the horrible moaning when the pain was just too much. Before she died Susan was a lot like one of those undead things.”

  Jack’s voice began to break as tears filled his eyes.

  “I’m glad she’s dead, Jimmy. I can’t believe I’m even saying that. I couldn’t have imagined it would ever be possible to think it, but it’s true. I’m glad she’s dead and not here to live in this nightmare.” Jack looked up at Jimmy; the tears that had filled his eyes begin to spill over onto his face.

  “At times I wish she were here, just so I could hold her, find a single damn second of sanity in all this,” Jack’s voice was becoming thick as he forced the words out around the painful knot in his throat.

  Jack stopped, sucking in great breaths, collecting his thoughts.

  “We’re the revenant’s now, Jimmy. Not the gut-suckers, they own the world now. We’re the revenants of an America that once was, trying to scratch our way out of a grave that was dug for us by other hands. I can’t live like that. I don’t want to.”

  Jack’s voice had become eerily calm, the last words spoken with such determined clarity that it gave Jimmy and Tamara chills.

  Tam broke the silence, saying, “Jack, it sounds like you want to…”

  “I do Tam, but I can’t. I’m weak, always have been, especially without Susan. I want to just sit here until I die, but I wouldn’t stay that way. And I can’t handle the thought of coming back, and one of you guys having to put me down.”

  “Jack, I’m sorry man, that’s all I can say, really. I won’t pretend to understand what you’re feeling at the moment, but I do know that this isn’t easy and we just have to rely on each other to get through it.”

  “Come on back with us Jack; let’s go get some coffee and something to eat.”

  “Thanks Tam, but I don’t feel like eating. I’ll just stay here for a while; maybe meet up with you at lunch.”

  “Jack, Tam and I will sit right here with you until you’re ready to go back, but we aren’t going to walk off and leave you alone.”

  Jack looked at the couple and knew they would not relent. He stood up, not bothering to dust himself off and followed them back to the Camp.

  Winter’s Passing

  The first snow of winter came earlier than planned, with large flakes beginning to fall just as the group began to build another funeral pyre.

  Almost a week after Jimmy and Tam had spoken to him in the woods, Jack’s body was found impaled through the left eye with the stick he had been whittling on that day. He left no note, but the letters ‘J n S’ inside a heart were found carved into the tree he was found under.

  Everyone was saddened at the loss of someone they valued as a friend, especially by his own hand. Tears were shed, but at no great length. Collectively, this group of survivors was becoming numb inside.

  The winter would prove to be very difficult for the survivors. Bitter cold and harsh winds, deep snows that made working and walking nearly impossible, cramped quarters were everyone was stuck inside for days.

  To help alleviate the cramped living conditions, Jonathan gave an open invitation to the group. Several people could share his home, trading out as they liked, so that everyone was able to enjoy his hospitality.

  The winter lasted far longer than anyone had planned for, with the first thaw coming in late April. The anticipation of a winter that normally lasted about four months led them all to believe that they would have sufficient food stores to last until they were able to scavenge more homes and plant the large gardens they intended for food.

  With winter still going strong at the end of March tempers began to flare as food ran low. Everyone feared that they would starve to death before more food could be found.

  Discussions wer
e had about the paint factory that sat on the highway just before the turnoff to Highway E and Saverton. They believed there may be food at the plant, as well as the houses at Woodland Groves Place. Woodland Groves was a small collection of homes that sat directly across from the paint factory, but was separated from Saverton by a wide expanse of woods.

  Going out immediately was vetoed by a majority of the group, but all agreed that if they got down to the last few days of food stores people would have to go scavenging.

  A final blow to morale was dealt when Dean, his sister Anna, along with Rick and the Tanner children went to spend a few days at Jonathan’s house during the first week of April.

  Early on the second day they were there Dean and Rick were up early, drinking coffee and talking quietly at the kitchen table when they heard a thump and crashing noise from Jonathan’s room. They went quickly down the hallway, afraid the old man may have fallen out of bed, only to open the door to find Jonathan shuffling around the bedroom.

  When the door opened the old man turned to look at the two men standing there with cold cataract covered eyes. His eyes were sunken, skin sallow and loose on the frail old face. His arms lifted slowly, the pajama shirt he had worn to bed hanging from his thin frame as if he had been draped in patterned sailcloth. Jonathan had died in his sleep.

  They closed the door quickly, but quietly, not wanting to wake the children just yet. The two men gathered the tools they would need and returned to the bedroom. Without a word they dispatched the kindly old man that the children had taken to calling ‘Grandpa Jon-Jon.”

  Once they delivered the news a quite despair settled in over the remaining survivors. Gone were the flaring tempers, and petty arguments.

  Unable to escape outside, many of the group fell into a depressive state, spending most of their time sleeping. This is how they spent much of the next few weeks, until one afternoon when someone noticed that the gray sky had become bluer than it had been all winter.