Generation Dead Book 2: What You Fear (4 page)

“What?  Why?”  I asked, bringing up my blade.

“’Cause I accidentally poked him with the needle.  Sorry.”  Jake was actually apologetic.

“Well, it would have been nice to get some more info, but we have a good start
,” I said.

“Not that good
,” Jake said.  “We don’t know where this man got his information and weapon from, or where this new threat is coming from.”

I thought for a second.  “I blame you
,” I said.

Jake gave me a lopsided grin as he picked up on of the man’s hands and dragged him off the lawn.

“So do I, Aaron.  So do I.”

Chapter 6

We waited until the first vestiges of sunrise came creeping over the horizon, then we made our way over to the center of town.  We still hadn’t found the fifteen missing zombies, and that was cause for some concern, since all it took for a real mess to start was one of them.  If
all of them decided to drift off in different directions, we were going to be slightly busy.  Add to the fun that a group was deliberately causing outbreaks, and I was seriously considering going back to bed and hiding under the covers.

We walked along the street that paralleled the river, and I was again surprised at how nice this little community was.  If I
were ever to leave the lodge, this would be a nice alternative.

I mentioned it to Jake, who nodded and then threw cold water on my dreams. 

“Would suck if the river flooded,” he said casually, looking at the water flowing by.

I had to resist the urge to throw him in the water.  He did still have the syringe full of zombie virus.  The plan was to take the virus back to the capital and see if there was anything extra special about the serum, or if it was just your standard, run of the mill zombie goop.

When we reached the main road, we turned east towards the town.  There were a lot of businesses in that area, and it looked like many of them had made a kind of comeback.  One restaurant even had a balcony, which reached out over the river.

A small dam ran the width of the river at this point, raising the north end about four feet.  A power plant was located across the water at this point, and seemed to be managing the power needs of the small community.  The sky was bluing up nicely as the sun regained
its proper place, and I was looking forward to seeing Julia again.

Jake began crossing a stone bridge when he stopped suddenly.  “I’ll be damned.”

“What?” I asked, trying to twist around to see what was the matter.  I looked down and joined Jake in his personal religious assessment skills.  “I’ll be damned.”

The business district had a series of deep ditches which captured overflow from the river and sent it out a massive storm drain.  The ditches were brick lined and ran around the foundations of the buildings, allowing
some bridges to add to the charm of the community.  When the ditches were flooded, I’m sure it actually looked nice, although you probably couldn’t hear yourself think out here when that drain was flowing.  A huge aluminum grate kept out most large things from flowing away, while smaller stuff would go through easily. A ladder was located next to the grate, and a small, two-foot high fence kept the little ones out of the ditch.

That wasn’t what had caught our attention.  What had
, was the mini-horde of zombies that milled about in general and groaned in particular.  They must have wandered this way in the night, and tumbled as a group into the ditch.  The fence was just high enough to hit the zombies in the knees and allow them to fall over the edge.

As we looked on, we could see several zombies that had managed to commit suicide by landing on their stupid heads.  I glanced around, and although the zombies were right there for the killing, there wasn’t any safe way to engage them.

“Any thoughts?” I asked.  We could use the ladder, I supposed, but it had its own risks and I wasn’t a fan of fighting on unstable ground.

Jake looked it over.  “Well, we could…no.  Um…we could…wait.”  Jake scowled at the zombies. “Huh.”

I knew then he was as stumped as I was.  There wasn’t any way in hell I was going to jump in there, and we sure weren’t going to let them out.  If we had something long, we might be able to get away with it, but not right now.

“Hang on, I have an idea
,” Jake said as he jogged back the way we had come.  I had nowhere to be right now, so it wasn’t hard to remain true to the charge.

About ten minutes later, Jake came jogging back with a cinder block on his shoulder and a length of rope.  He tied the rope to the cinder block,
and then carefully lowered it until it was about three feet from the ground in the ditch.  Several zombies touched and grabbed the block, but after they realized it wasn’t anything to eat, they weren’t interested.

Jake held the block down,
and then tied the other end of the rope to the fence, making sure he kept the length the same.  I watched curiously, since I wasn’t sure where this was going.

When Jake had everything he needed ready, he pulled up the cinder block and looked over at me, holding the stone above his head.

“Got this idea from Dad’s journal.  You want to go first, or can I?”  Jake asked.

I suddenly realized what he was talking about.  “That’s brilliant. You can go first, you thought of it.” I leaned over the rail and watched as the hungry ghouls reached up in frustrated hunger at the food
that they would never be able to reach.

Jake hurled the cinder block down, and it cracked the skull of a middle-aged man.  As he went down, the rope went taut and kept the block from hitting the ground.  Jake hauled up on the rope and handed the stone to me.

“Your turn.”  He said with a smile.

“This will take a while, methinks
,” I said, looking for a target.  The rope limited our range, but that was okay, since the zombies always came to us, no matter what.

“I’m open to suggestions
,” Jake said testily.

I threw the block down, nailing a teen in the face as he looked up.  His forehead flattened from the impact, and he fell over.

“I was thinking of holding you upside down while you smacked away with your mace,” I said, pulling on the rope.  A zombie took hold of it and hung on.  I gave the rope a few quick jerks, and the zombie let go.

Jake didn’t dignify that with an
answer; he just took the block from me and killed another zombie.

We worked that crowd for about a half an hour, and managed to kill nearly all of them.  The last one was tough, since he had to climb over the bodies of his comrades, and both Jake and I missed several times trying to nail him.  Finally, on what seemed like the hundredth throw, Jake caught him perfectly on the top of the head with the cinder block, dropping that annoyance for good.

“All right, then.  Let’s get Julia and get out of here,” I said.  “We need to get that crap in the syringe to the government.”

“Yeah, I’d hate to see what someone else might do with it
,” Jake said. 

Chapter 7

We had a bit of a mystery on our hands. Someone was obviously trying to cause an outbreak, but the purpose behind it was unclear.  Did they want to wipe out everyone, throw us back into the dark ages, living in caves and hoping the zombies don’t find us?  Granted it would be different this time, since there weren’t as many people around to get infected, but in the last twenty years of relative peace and quiet, people have been doing a pretty good job of getting things running and rebuilding the population.  There were a lot of kids around, and as I thought about it, I realized that if someone got a bunch of kids infected, we’d all be in trouble.

We moved towards the other side of town, heading towards the restaurant.  It was the most easily defended place in town, and was a backup location in case of an outbreak.  That much we had learned when we arrived here.

Jake retrieved the needle from
its hiding place, and carefully carried it with him. I thought that having it out in the open was probably a bad idea, so as we walked, I looked for something we could store it in.  I wanted to find something that was sealed, so in case the thing broke, the virus would be contained.

As we made our way to the holding area, we passed a small food store.  I looked in, and saw they had a lot of canned goods on the shelves.  That gave me an idea, so I went into the back room and found a number of jars and lids.  Jake saw what I found and happily transferred the needle
into the jar.  I put the lid on, and then transferred the small jar to my pack.  As I looked at the liquid in the light, I swear it swirled on its own.  If I had put some on a counter, I firmly believe the evil stuff would have tried to make its way over to me.  That’s how creeped out I was over it.  If I had to think about it, I was angry, too.  I couldn’t figure out how anyone could hate so much that they would be willing to kill the world.  It didn’t make any sense.

With the needle secured, we made our way to the river, and then the restaurant.  Along the way, we burned off the remnants of the virus from the killings at the houses.  As we did that, I started to get angry
about the number of orphans that were needlessly created.  Sure, someone would take them in, but why was it necessary?  If someone hated the world that much, why cause suffering?  Just suck a gun barrel and pull the trigger.  All hate would be gone.

I said as much to Jake, and he nodded in agreement.

“It does seem like a lot of trouble to go through.  If you wanted to start an outbreak, why bother with all the secretive stuff?  Doesn’t make any sense.  There are still plenty of zombies in the cities.  Just knock down a wall or two and wait for the fun to begin,” Jake said.

“Makes you wonder why they are trying to do things this way
,” I replied.

“Well, if we can figure out the plan, we can get ahead and finish this before it does become a major outbreak.”

“Good luck with that,” I said.

“Why?”

“Right now we’ve got two small outbreaks which we handled.  Taken together, they seem to be a part of a plan, but the communities are nowhere near each other.  Right now, it’s looking like just experimentation, with something else to hit us at another time.”

“Think we’re being tested?” Jake speculated.

“Not us.  I think society is, and how it reacts will determine the next move by our mutual enemy,” I said.

Jake looked at me sideways.

“What?” I asked, not liking his look.

“You sounded like dad just then.”

I thought for a minute.  “Not a bad thing, considering.”

Jake looked off into the distance.  “Wouldn’t hurt to have the old man around right now
,” he said quietly.

“Yeah
,” I said, just as quietly.

At the restaurant, we made our way through a number of people who looked at us with anxious eyes.  I found the leader of the community and quickly relayed what we had found and where they would need to send crews to get bodies out of houses.  When they asked about how the outbreak started, I hesitated for a minute, but then realized they needed to be on alert, more so than they had been.

“It was a deliberate infection.  Someone came and injected those poor people with the virus, trying to start a major outbreak up here,” I said, bracing for the response.

I wasn’t disappointed.  Several gasps and many curses followed with a few questions being shouted, along with numerous threats.

I held up my hands for quiet as Julia worked her way forward from the back of the restaurant where she was entertaining some of the children.

“I don’t have answers for you.  I truly don’t
, but someone is trying to unmake everything that we’ve done over the past twenty years, and they don’t seem to care how they go about it.  We have a lead, and we’re working on that, but for right now, you people need to be wary of strangers, keep your eyes open, and lock your doors at night.  It would probably be a good time to pull out the weapons and start practicing again.”  As I said this, several older heads in the room nodded, and I knew they would be just fine.  It was the younger ones I worried about.

“There’s a bunch of turned folk down in the ditch, so someone will need to get them out.  You guys will be fine, just keep on your toes, and listen to your veterans
,” I said as I moved towards the door.  Julia was right behind me and I had a feeling she had questions.  Jake was at the door, but as I finished he slipped out.

I was right behind him and Julia took my hand in hers.  I gave her a smile and she winked at me, making me feel a whole lot better after having spent the night chasing zombies and getting absolutely no sleep whatsoever.

“What’s the next move, Jake?” I asked as my brother made his way back to the truck.

“We need to get that syringe to the capital, and see if we can’t get a meeting with the president.”  Jake said.

“What for?” Julia asked, beating me to the punch.

Jake stopped and turned around.  “In case you hadn’t noticed,
there are just three of us.  What if there’s a large outbreak that we can’t control? What then?  We can’t throw rocks at all of them.”