Dawnland (Book 1): Pockets of the Dead

by Karen Carr

  The other objects on the dresser were a couple of dice; a small box of crayons like you would get in a restaurant, and a handful of change. Why anyone would keep change in their pocket now was beyond me. Money was useless. Everything was free. The only benefit of the apocalypse was that everyone who survived could do whatever they wanted, take whatever they wanted, and go wherever they wanted—as long as they avoided the zeroes.

  If Huck came back, there would be others.

  My dreams still could come true. There were others, families, people who needed warm clothes and shelter for the winter. I had enough apartments for them, but I didn’t have enough supplies. I’d have to make a trip out of the village. I’d have to go to Walmart.

  Chapter 10: Five Minutes

  November 23rd

  Green, Oval Park Place

  Haverlyn Village

  It was hard to look forward to spending the holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, with the Professor as my date. It would be the first time away from my parents and siblings and our holiday traditions. We were like most families during the holidays, we ate too much, we gave too much, and we fought too much, especially when all the relatives came to town.

  There was a gift shop in the village that sold greeting cards among other things. When I was rummaging through the storage area in the back, I found a bunch of boxes filled with Christmas cards ready to replace the Halloween ones. I had picked out a few cards that would have been perfect for my family, a card of a dog singing Jingle Bells for my sister and a gooey emotional one giving thanks to my parents. My brother’s had a picture of the North Pole and a fake one-way ticket to it inside. He would have enjoyed it. I had addressed all of them, even finding and sticking stamps on them, and put them in the mail slot in the store, knowing they would never leave it.

  I thought about those cards, permanently sitting in the mailbox, as I walked to my pickup truck. Huck and his friends would be back before Christmas, and I would have real people to gift presents. Brand new towels, socks and underwear, toys for the children, toothpaste and new brushes, winter coats—after months of living without these necessities it was bound to be a successful holiday, but certainly not a happy one.

  There were lots of things to decide, like if I should wrap their gifts or choose their apartments or give them boxes of stuff and let them decide where to live. Choosing apartments for them might seem too controlling. I wanted them to feel welcome here, not creeped out, like Haverlyn Village was somehow all mine and it was my job to decide where everyone lived and what everyone did.

  Suddenly I heard footsteps behind me, but when I turned I saw only leaves rustling down the sidewalk in the wind. With no blowers to remove them, the leaves were everywhere. If I didn’t have anything better to do, I would rake them into a giant pile and pretend to be a kid again by jumping in it over and over again. A reflection of movement in the glass of the store I was passing, a pharmacy, caused me to jump. This time it was only a dog chasing a bird in the green.

  This happened often when I was alone, and usually left me with a sickening feeling of hopelessness when I realized that the person was just a figment of my imagination or something else. This time, though, I felt a twinge of excitement. Huck had a long journey, almost six hundred miles round trip, but if anyone could make it through he would. I’d have to get over the fact that he had a girlfriend. The picture could have been old, or she could have changed into one of them, worse than dead.

  I drove around Oval Park Place before I left, not going more than 5 miles an hour so that the undead heads would explode before I got to them and so that the Professor would be extra-especially protected. I knew I was risking his life by going to Walmart because the village would no longer be protected, but the chances of him leaving his apartment were slim so I felt it worth the risk.

  November 23rd

  Route 15/501

  South of Haverlyn Village

  I headed down the route toward Walmart at my molasses-slow pace. It was only two or three miles, but I dared not go faster than my aura. This was my first time out of the village, and if it went well, my next stop would be downtown to visit Saudah’s apartment. I made sure to observe the bodies lying around and for that purpose; I brought my iPhone and took as many pictures as possible.

  There were two lanes on each side of the road, divided by a grass meridian. Ahead of me, a big tractor-trailer had jackknifed and blocked the two lanes, so I had to drive across the meridian to the other side. S several corpses were laying on the other side of the big rig, five or six men and women, who must have been undead before I arrived.

  The corpses’ eyeballs were gone and fleshy matter drained from their sockets, nose and mouth. They must have become stuck behind the truck, in perpetual motion, trying to get around it. I sighed when I realized I couldn’t do much research on the undead’s migration habits because my virus killed them before I could observe them.

  Because of the speed I was going and the obstacles I had to avoid and the pictures I wanted to take; it took me over an hour to get to Walmart. The parking lot was full of cars. Some were parked in regular spots, but most were left haphazardly all over the place. There were RVs mixed in with tractor-trailers and all sorts of cars.

  My aura had killed all zeroes in the parking lot, but I did not bring a weapon in case of human attack. That was stupid. I had to be on the lookout for bad guys at all times. If Huck found me, so could others and they might not be so nice.

  I parked my truck against the yellow poles at the entrance, got out and walked to the doors wondering how I was going to get in. Abruptly, with a buzz and a whoosh, the automatic doors opened. My legs wobbled first with fear then with excitement. Walmart had solar. I had forgotten this was a new store. It had opened weeks before the apocalypse, and was touting its use of solar energy.

  Frozen chicken pot pies, mini meatballs, ice cream, sugar dough cookies and frozen fruit. There had to be hundreds of meals waiting for me in there, but I was on another mission today. I put a cart in between both sets of automatic doors so that if the power stopped working, I would still be able to get out.

  There were dead bodies all over Walmart and most of them were recent. I must have caused a massive head explosion when I drove up. Halloween supplies were still out, ghoulish masks—even one of a zombie, deflated black cats, and tons and tons of candy. I had the urge to run through the store to get everything I needed and get out as quickly as possible, but I didn’t want to be surprised by anyone. Instead, I took two carts so that I could carry twice as much, and pushed them both into the store.

  I grabbed towels and tee shirts and underwear and pajamas and sweat pants and socks. I grabbed coats and boots and mittens and hats. I grabbed journals and pens and pencils, crayons and felt-tips. I grabbed Legos and toothbrushes and cat food for Snowball, and a child’s bicycle. Finally, I headed for the food section where I grabbed arm loads of frozen food. On my way out, I grabbed breath mints and a candy bar.

  With the newcomers, I wouldn’t be able to venture back to Walmart without giving away my secret or anywhere ever again. I would be the one responsible for keeping everyone alive. I’d have to stay near Oval Park Place for the rest of my life so that it was protected by my circle of death. This whole idea bummed me out.

  Once I had a good home base, I wanted to go on a walk-about to find other survivors. I wanted to find Stan and Saudah. I couldn’t do that with people coming. I had a choice, to pretend the village was protected and to be stuck in it, or to tell them my secret and have all of us become a wandering caravan looking for survivors. It was safer to keep my secret for now. I would have to try and find Stan and Saudah before Huck made it back to the village. Downtown would be my next destination.

  After I packed the truck, I drove out of Walmart’s parking lot and onto the road home. When I was about a quarter mile away from the entrance to the village, far off in the distance and in the entrance itself, I spotted several zeroes tottering about like little old ladies. There was so
mething peculiar about the way they were dressed, one looked like it was wearing bunny ears, but I couldn’t tell from the distance. I was still over a thousand feet away and they were still very much alive, so when I saw them head into the village I hit the gas pedal, thinking only of the Professor.

  There were at least half a dozen adults and they were all dressed in Halloween costumes. My vision of a Halloween parade of the pre-apocalypse was here, only now they were all undead. One was dressed as a rabbit, one was a fairy princess, one a French maid, a couple dressed as his and hers pirates, and the last one was dressed as a zombie. A zero dressed as a zombie. From my research on their migration habits, and the evidence that they clustered, I figured they had been bumping around together since October.

  They were approaching Oval Park Place and moving quicker than I expected them to, so I had to do something fast. I hit the gas harder and rapidly landed right in front of them. When they saw me, they turned and dragged their feet toward the pickup, their moans reaching my ears.

  I turned up the volume on my music so that I did not have to hear them and locked my doors. I knew my aura would take a few minutes to catch up with me, but they would be on me in no time.

  I considered turning around and driving back to WalMart, but once my aura was gone, it was gone—it wasn’t like I could find it again and cocoon myself safely in its bubble. I had to wait for it to expand around me again. If I sat in my truck and waited, they might break the glass. I didn’t have a gun to shoot them and my aura hadn’t caught up with me, so my only choice was to mow them down.

  I tried to channel my inner stock-car-driver and hit the first one, the fairy princess, head on. She flew over the hood and slid up my windshield before she rolled to the ground. A part of her yellow satin dress caught on my hood and it was flapping around like a flag.

  I turned in a circle and knocked out the rabbit and the male pirate with the side of my truck. I heard a thunk-thunk and felt a bump-bump as I drove over their bodies.

  The fairy princess managed to get up and moved swiftly toward the village. Her costume was voluminous, layers of yellow satin and white lace and red ribbons trailed after her in a train. The female pirate had reached me and started banging on the window. Her face was severely bloated and her teeth were missing or blacked out from the costume.

  I tried to back up the pickup, but it was stuck on something, most likely the other pirate. I tried my dad’s technique for getting out of the snow, reversing and then moving forward in quick succession. It didn’t work.

  The fairy princess moved onto Oval Park Place and into the village. She had spotted something and was moving uncharacteristically fast, especially with all the fabric she was carrying. I honked the horn to try and get her attention, but it only made the female pirate more frenzied in her attempt to get to me.

  I still probably had several minutes before my aura caught up and if the princess was going for the Professor, she would be on him sooner than that. I had no choice but to abandon my vehicle.

  Crap.

  I cursed myself once again for not bringing a weapon. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  Before getting out of the truck, I looked feverishly around for anything I could use as a weapon. There it was. The female pirate had a big gigantic sword lashed to her back, and it looked real. To get it, I would have to get close to her and she still very much wanted to eat me. I jumped out of the opposite side of the truck, hoping to be able to dash around and surprise her, but I stepped right into the male pirate’s guts under the truck. My foot was stuck in his rib cage.

  But he had a sword too. A giant sword was still lashed to his back. I pulled it free and by the weight, I could tell it would do damage. The female pirate managed to climb over all of the stuff in the bed of the truck. I really didn’t want to get bitten again. The pain last time I was bit was horrifying. I might die of infection, or worse, my aura might not work if I get bit a second time, and then I might turn into one of them.

  Why wasn’t her head exploding? Surely it should have by now.

  I swung the heavy sword in her direction and hit her in the buttocks. She fell out of the bed to the truck, taking the child’s bicycle with her, to her knees on the ground. As she tried to get up, I swung again, this time aiming for her head. I hit it, but my swing wasn’t strong enough to bust it open. I readied the heavy sword for another blow just as her hands came clawing for my face. I swung one more time, and made contact with her neck, slicing almost all the way through.

  She was still animated, but could no longer see me. I tugged at my foot and managed to dislodge it from her partner’s rib cage and ran toward the village. I hoped I wasn’t too late.

  I saw the fairy princess immediately. She was bent down on the road feasting on something in the middle of it. My heart exploded. I saw more movements from the corner of the eye, and heard hoof beats. Several deer were running away from her. I saw it clearly now, the thing she was eating had spindly long legs.

  The fairy princess had taken down a deer. I approached her quietly with my sword drawn high. She looked up from her meal. Blood was dripping down her cheek. Just as I was about to chop off her head, it exploded in a tremendous shake. Her whole brain and skull splattered all over me. My aura had come back with a vengeance.

  I dropped the sword and sat on the ground in exhaustion. My heart was still racing, but I was at once incredibly tired. The Professor would have surely spotted them through his webcam and would be asking me questions. I prayed that he hadn’t chosen this day to go for a walk outside. I decided not to check on the Professor just yet, because he was either dead, zombiefied, or fine, and me checking on him would not help any of those conditions. I went back to my apartment.

  Those stupid zeroes terrified me. My aura had made me lax, and it also had made me more fearful of them. They were out of my life with the aura, but without it, I was just a regular piece of lunch meat to them. I didn’t want to be like that again. I didn’t want to go back to being regular, but from this day forward I was always going to carry a weapon. I would have to get a new ride. I had my eye on a Lexus LX 570.

  Chapter 11: Are You Home?

  December 1st

  Downtown, Main Street

  North of Haverlyn Village

  On my way to Downtown. Winter.. It’s cold.. It hasn’t snowed yet.

  I postponed fulfilling my promise to Saudah long enough. I had to try and find her. It was time to go downtown. With one trip outside the village behind me, a second trip would be easier as long as the Professor promised to stay inside.

  This time I would bring the gun I found in the apartment above the market. Actually the owners, Savannah Castervine and her anonymous boyfriend or husband—there had been men’s clothes hanging in the closet and a dead man on her bed, had several guns of all shapes and sizes. I took the only one I could figure out how to use, also since it was already loaded with bullets.

  After Saudah’s, I wanted to stop by the record store next to her apartment to get some vinyl for the Professor. He had a good-sized record collection already, and a turntable to play them on, but he was missing some old time classics. He liked blues, Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters, psychedelic rock like Hendrix and Morrison, and a bunch of bands that I hadn’t heard of, but I had taken notes when he mentioned them. I also yearned for a pair of Uggs, which I would get from the Foot Store.

  I knew the streets would probably be blocked with vacant cars, so I’d have to walk, take a bike or learn how to drive a motorcycle. With no ability to forecast the weather, I didn’t want to risk being caught in a storm on a motorcycle while I was learning to drive it.

  Downtown was the opposite direction of Walmart, and about twice as far, so it would probably take me several hours to get there, four hours—tops. Because I wanted to visit a couple of stores, and because I wanted to visit Saudah’s apartment downtown, I planned on spending the night. I told the Professor I was going to be gone overnight in our last session, and told him to be extra cautious becaus
e, I lied, I had seen a crazy person running around the alleys.

  I had been through several more therapy sessions with the Professor in which he discovered that I resented my brother for being free, and felt guilty for not paying enough attention to my sister. Apparently, I loved my parents but I spent too much time idolizing my father. My need to see fairness in everything stemmed from a deep angst at being the middle child. I found out that the Professor had spent most of his childhood on a sailboat, and that his parents were cruisers. He developed agoraphobia in a particularly dangerous storm where he only felt safe below deck.

  The day was brisk, but not too cold so I wore layers including a sweater, long sleeve shirt, rain jacket with a hood and waterproof thermal lined sweatpants. I had found a pink bicycle, my favorite color, in one of the apartments. It had a big basket in the front and wire saddle bags, which would be perfect for carrying my Christmas treasures.

  I took my charm bracelet off and zipped my keys and a Swiss army knife into the zipper pocket on the sweatpants. I bundled a small package of food and water into the front basket. I took a small axe in a sheath and attached to my belt and placed the gun in the basket. To keep my neck warm, I wrapped a scarf around it and finally slung a pair of binoculars over my shoulders.

  Before I left, I cycled slowly around Oval Park Place to make sure that any zeroes within my killing-zone would be destroyed. My route would take me up a four lane route toward town, and then down to the main street. It wasn’t the shortest way to go, but I thought it would be best to stay on the bigger roads. It would also give me an idea of how many cars I had to clear before I would be able to drive into town, one of the things on my endless list of things to do. I could then stash my bike, go to Saudah’s to look for clues, rest and eat, go shopping, then find a place to spend the night.

  It was nine o’clock in the morning by the time I rolled out onto the route toward town. I rode in a slow snake, taking pictures with my iPhone. It didn’t take long for me to reach the 1000 foot mark, the point where my zero killing aura made a barrier against the village. Corpses of zeroes spread in a wavering arch from the forest on one side to the subdivision on the other. The dead bodies would continue through the forest and in a giant circle around the village, meeting at the subdivision on the other side.