Dead World Rising (Book 1): Staying Human

by Petrova, Katerina

  'You don't know that,' I told her angrily.

  'Jade, we have to think rationally here,' Tom replied.

  'I am thinking rationally, we have been safe here for many years how can you even think of putting everyone in danger for what I think is a pipe dream?' I argued.

  'Because anything is better than sitting here waiting to die!' Tom shouted.

  'We are not going to die, the safe zone might not even be safe any more. How long ago was it that Cameron found the notes, four going on five months ago,' I screeched back.

  'Have you forgotten about the men we've seen round here? They could come for us at any moment!' Tom yelled.

  'Right you two, give it a rest.' Nora told them.

  We all stood in silence, it was not often Nora shouted but when she did we all listened.

  'Sorry.' Me and Tom said at the same time.

  'Now, listen to me. I know you want to wait for Cameron but I think you need to face reality, he's been gone too long,' she spoke softly.

  'I know,' I said sadly.

  'And while I think we should leave for the safe zone, I don't think our current number of people is going to get us there,' Nora told us.

  'But we don't trust outsiders though,' Tamara informed us sternly.

  'I know that, and if we can't get added numbers then we need to be smart about this. First things first, we need a vote. Who wants to stay and who wants to go, hands up now,' Nora replied sternly. Tom and Tamara were the only ones who wanted to go, me, Jensen and Maggie voted to stay. Nora chose not to vote as I think she knew that with her frail body she would not make it, the matter for now had at least been settled.

  We settled in for the night, even though we had three bedrooms upstairs we had decided long ago to keep to the cellar. We felt it was much safer to all keep together than to split up, it meant sleeping on the concrete floor but it was still better than being outside. My eyes felt heavy as I laid down, I knew in my heart that Cameron was dead but I still refused to cry.

  I woke the next morning and went to check the outside for corpses, I knew that with the freezing weather and the snow there would be none but I still wanted to check. I stood in my garden looking round at scenery, even in the freezing weather my home was still a beautiful place. I had loved living here and had never felt so at home anywhere else, the frozen trees still felt alive, the icy ground still thrummed with life. Living in the country had been a blessed change of pace from the loud, polluted city I had once lived in. I smiled as the memories flooded my mind.

  Back in my early twenties I moved to the city of London to experience a different lifestyle, I had been in the country my whole life and wanted to see something else. I had lived and worked there for almost two years, I had hated every moment of it. I had finally come home with my tail between my legs to a smiling mother who said 'I told you so.' She had been right when she told me I would hate it, but she knew I needed to go. I was glad that she lived long enough to see me embrace the country life, never again would I trade it in for the noisy, cramped and lonely city.

  She died almost a year later, my heart felt heavy as I was left without any blood family. My father had left many years before, as a selfish, vile, alcoholic he was not missed by either me or my mother. I had no siblings that I was aware of and my grandparents on both sides had died decades ago, if it was not for Nora I would have been completely alone.

  It was strange that about three months after my mother died, I started to get intense nightmares. They were nothing unusual at first, being naked on the bus to work or muddling up my words in a speech but then I noticed that they were coming true. I had my first prophetic dream four months after my mothers death, I dreamt of Nora and how she would lose her beloved pure white cat Oliver to those blasted foxes. Oliver was a scrapper and could take care of himself, he'd often fought with the foxes and came out the winner. I woke in the early hours of the morning drenched in sweat, that's when I heard the noises outside. I the loud hissing and growling, the sound of Oliver fighting. I raced to put my clothes and shoes on but by the time I got outside it was too late, Oliver was dying. I ran to get a thin blanket from my house, I picked him up and cradled him in my arms.

  Oliver was Nora's closest companion, her children had left the country so she had no other family here. She doted on the cat and even got him Christmas presents, I ran to her house banging on the door in the early hours of the morning. She opened the door in her pink dressing gown and slippers, when she saw poor Oliver her kind face turned to sadness. She had been a vet in her younger life and knew when she looked at his wounds that there was nothing to be done, all we could go was sit by his side and wait for his end to come.

  We buried Oliver in Nora's back garden next to her beloved dog Milo who died the year before, I held her as she cried vowing one day to give her another animal friend when she was ready. A few days after we buried Oliver I told Nora how I came upon him, given that she was a Christian woman I expected her to say I was going to hell or something like that. Instead she just looked at me and smiled, until that day I had never known that my mother had the gift. Nora said that my mother hadn't wanted to worry me as the gift sometimes skipped a generation in my family. I asked her what having the gift meant and if it meant I was a bad person, Nora told me how my mum used her gifts to help people and how the year before my mum had helped her bury Milo after having a vision of his death.

  I had since then researched alternative religions and found that in Paganism they were very accepting of psychic gifts, the more I learned about it the more fascinated I became. At twenty-five I knew I'd found my religious path, I also found that as I learned to rely on my gifts and believe in them the more they developed on their own. By the time I turned thirty I had become somewhat of an empath, I could feel what other people were feeling often before they knew it themselves. I had learned to either focus it or shut it down when I didn't want to invade other people feelings.

  The people who were with me today knew about my gifts, Tom at first found it hard to accept but as time went on and my abilities proved true he learned to believe in them. Jensen and Maggie knew I would not tell lies so they took my word as truth, and while Tamara came from an overly Catholic background she had seen many things on her travels and knew my gifts to be real. Some people I'd known from before the outbreak hadn't believed in my visions but I had learned that not all people were capable of accepting my truth. I did not let it deter me though, as I kept on helping people.

  I just wish that I could conjure my visions on demand, if a vision could tell me whether leaving for a safe zone was a good idea then I would go. Yet I knew that some things had to found out by living, not just by seeing. The one thing I didn't need a vision to tell me was that I would do anything to keep my family safe, and for now to me that meant keeping them here.

  I could see Tamara and Tom's point about leaving and I had often thought about it but in truth I couldn't bring myself to leave my only true home I had ever known. Not only that we had remained safe here for so long that I didn't want to risk going out into the world and putting everyone I loved in unnecessary danger.

  The hardest part of my life was losing my mother, which as I discovered more of Paganism I knew that death was not the end. I would see her again in another life just as I would all those I had lost since the outbreak again, not that it made their losses any easier but it did give me some comfort. I checked our food supply, we were running dangerously low on food but I didn't want us to go out as I'd seen some not so nice looking people around last time we had.

  From what we'd overheard they were slave traders, men who kidnapped women and used them to reproduce. It made me sick to my stomach but there was nothing we could do to stop them, all we could do was keep out of their way. That was last month, but from what we heard they were going to stick around these parts for a while, I wondered if I should take Tamara out to look and see if they were still here. It would be risky but if we didn't do something soon we would starve to death, and
it was my job to ensure the safety of my family.

  I took Tamara upstairs as I put the idea to her about going out, she agreed to come with me. We went downstairs to tell the others, Tom wasn't happy about being left behind but we told him that just in case the men came here we needed him to take care of the others. He begrudgingly agreed to stay, me and Tamara gathered our weapons as we went outside.

  We climbed over the fence at the front of the houses and slipped along the riverbank, we did not get very far before we heard voices. They were on the other side of the river searching the houses, I could hear a man talking to two women. We couldn't hear clearly but he told them to search the houses, he mentioned something about staying put for a while and how the others were going to meet them soon.

  The supermarket was just down the road but we didn't want to chance getting caught, so we went back home with our tails between our legs kicking ourselves for not bringing back more food the last time we had gone to the supermarket.

  Chapter 3

  Nikkita

  It had been too long since I had been home, I'd been in Scotland looking at universities when the world went to hell. I'd left my mother and two younger brothers at home in Dukinfield when I had left with my father. I was eighteen when everything changed, that was five years ago.

  My dad had been so excited to come with me when I'd looked at universities, he was so proud of me as I wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a psychologist. We had looked at the universities in Edinburgh and Glasgow first, I was in awe of their large size and old fashioned architecture. We had been on our way to Rosslyn for a few days break when everything happened, the city of Edinburgh quickly became overrun. It was only because we had already been trying to get out of the city that we made it out in one piece, the roads were cramped, full of cars and people who had become stranded. I could tell he was panicking but he kept a strong front for me, if not for the fact that dad sent me to self-defence classes from the age of twelve I never would have survived.

  We ended up having to change our destination and instead of going to Rosslyn we went to Pentland Hills Regional Park, we stopped by a little village on the way to gather some supplies. We had enough to last a few months, but sadly my father wouldn't last that long. In the time we lived in the park we managed to avoid the dead, we did have a few problems with other people though. As it turned out a world like this not only created psycho's but enabled those already sick and twisted to act out their vile fantasies, after two months in the park a group of men took it over. We listened helplessly as they took women into their compound and tortured them, it was only because of my father that I didn't share their fate.

  We had found an old quarry that had several shallow caves in, whether they were man made or not we didn't know. Every few days we changed which cave we lived in so that the men wouldn't find us, sadly that tactic only worked for about a month after they arrived.

  One night we woke to the sound of two men trying to sneak into our sleeping space, I jumped up ready to fight but my father had beaten me to it. He kicked one of the guys hard in the stomach causing the man to fall over in agony, I crippled the other one by elbowing him in the chest.

  Me and my father fled the cave leaving behind all but our weapons, we did not get far though as more of their group were waiting nearby. Three of them grabbed me, I screamed as they held a knife to my throat causing my father to drop his weapon. He stood up as he pleaded with them to spare me, I gave one of them a swift kick in jewels as he tried to grab my ass. I smiled smugly as he went down crying out in pain, they pinned my father down but he looked at me and smiled. I knew he had a plan up his sleeve, my father was a smart man and I just knew that he would get us out of this.

  'Are you two alright?' My dad asked concernedly. For a moment I was confused but then I realised what he was on about, my father had been twenty when I'd been born and while he looked young for his age I looked much older than eighteen.

  'Ow!' I screamed as I fell to the floor clutching my stomach.

  'I didn't touch her,' said one of the older men angrily.

  'My wife is pregnant,' my dad lied.

  'You picked a girl who's already knocked up?' Growled the tall, dark skinned, man I had assumed was the leader.

  'I thought this was his daughter,' replied the older man. I kept squirming on the floor in agony as the men debated what to do with us, I looked at my father who gave me a look which said 'get ready to fight.' There were seven of the men but only two of us, it would take a miracle to get us out of this. One thing they didn't know though was the knives we had concealed up our sleeves, I waited for my dad to nod and we both made our move.

  Time moved so fast that I barely had time to react, I swung out both of my arms making sure the knife points were sticking out enough. I slit two men's throat with my knives, I didn't stop even as their blood splattered on my face. I saw that my dad had taken out two of them as well but the other two had grabbed him, they pulled the knives from my dads sleeve and held them to his throat.

  'Move and he's dead,' growled the tall dark one. I dropped my knives and felt the panic rise up inside me, how the hell were we going to get out of here now? We might have evened the odds a little but they weren't going to fall for any more tricks, I felt the tears well up within me as my dad gave me a look that told me run. I shook my head but I knew that there were more of these men around, if I didn't get away now then I never would. No matter what I did they were going to kill him, so I ran as fast as I could out of the park. I heard my father scream as I reached the edge, I let the tears fall as it sunk in that I was never going to see him again.

  I cried as I relived that memory, it had been over four and a half years since his death but still I had not been close to anyone else. I shook my head refusing to give into my grief, I still had my own mission to take care of. I had since been trying to get home in a hopes of finding my family and my girlfriend, though I knew that it was doubtful I would find them alive.

  I loved my family more than anything but in many ways my girlfriend was just like family, we met when she was almost fourteen and I had just turned fifteen, in Dukinfield park. She was being bullied by some twats from her school, I just looked at her all timid and shy, how could I not save a damsel in distress. From then until the day I left for Scotland, we were inseparable.

  I was very tall for a woman, but she almost matched me in height. Her long flaxen hair looked as though it had been woven in perfect golden waves that hung almost to her waist, those lapis lazuli eyes never failed to keep any emotion from me.

  As the weeks turned into months our friendship became something more, neither I nor she had any previous relationships before we got together. Yet there was no awkward first kiss or fumbling of any kind, being with her felt natural. We had always dreamed of travelling the world together, once she finished college she would join me in Scotland. Sadly I had not seen her since leaving, though I made a vow to find a way to return to her somehow.

  I was now nearing the city of Leeds, I had stayed out of major cities for the most part and my journey to get back home had been put off for so long, I'd fled from slave groups. I had hidden in the woods from the dead, rescued people wherever was possible, yet despite my saving people I never truly cared about anyone. I always feared losing people so I found it better to shut myself off from my emotions, I wasn't cold exactly but neither was I warm or attentive to people's feelings.

  I kept my head down as I avoided the dead, I smeared my body and face with their blood to keep myself hidden. I knelt down behind some cars as I crept past the corpses, there were far too many for me to take on alone. I had come to the city in a hopes of finding a usable car, the chances were slim I knew but I had to try. Leeds had become dangerous not just because of the dead but there were a group of people who killed others in order to survive, from what I had seen they were mix of men and women each just as ruthless and cold-hearted as the slave group back in Scotland. I hid underneath a car as they drove by, I
knew their base wasn't too far from here so I had to be extra careful.

  I stayed under the car until I was sure they had passed me, I quietly rolled out to find myself face to face with a man and woman. I immediately got out my knife but they held up their hands defensively.

  'We mean no harm,' the man whispered. I could see more of the dead coming this way so I ushered them to follow me away from the motorway, there was a small wooded area nearby that was far safer than the backed up carriageway. I kept quiet until we were out of the way, I wasn't sure what to make of these people. They both looked to be in their fifties with the man being quite tall and broad with shoulder length, tied back, silver hair and piercing blue eyes. The woman was small and dumpy with long reddish grey hair and the same icy coloured eyes, I wondered if they were related.

  'Where are you heading?' I asked suspiciously.

  'We're trying to get back to Leicester, we've got family there,' the man replied.

  'What about you?' Asked the woman. 'I'm going home,' I replied shortly.

  'Don't suppose you want to join us for a bit?' The man offered kindly.

  I thought about it for a moment, I didn't really like other people but this was a dangerous city and I was surely going to need help in getting out of here in one piece.

  'Sure, why not. I'm Nikkita by the way,' I said softly.

  'I'm Bob, this is my sister Andi,' he told me smiling.

  'Pleased to meet you both,' I replied kindly. We walked through the wooded area back towards the motorway, if there were any working cars they would be along here. I was thankful that the dead had moved on, we searched many cars on the road but found none to be in working order. Most of them had been stripped of parts and petrol, I made a point of telling Andi and Bob about the group that was holed up round here.

  'Thanks for the warning,' Andi said graciously.

  'Those bastards are ruthless, they are just like the people who killed my dad back in Scotland,' I told them.