Regeneration (Mad Swine Book 3)
Read Regeneration (Mad Swine Book 3) Online
Authors: Steven Pajak
Tags: #undead, #z nation, #zed, #dystopian, #end of the world, #post apocalyptic, #zombie, #infected, #living dead, #apocalypse
Regeneration
Mad Swine Book 3
Steven Pajak
A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK
Published at
Smashwords
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-659-6
REGENERATION
Mad Swine Book Three
© 2015 by Steven Pajak
All Rights Reserved
Cover art by Martin Kintanar
This book is a work of fiction. People,
places, events, and situations are the product of the author's
imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or
historical events, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without
the written permission of the author and publisher.
Permuted Press
109 International Drive, Suite 300
Franklin, TN 37067
Chapter 7: I Don’t Care
Anymore
In My Time of
Dying
It was a long night; perhaps the
longest I have known since this madness began. It is hard to
believe that only three months have passed since the outbreak; the
life I once had with my wife and kids seems like a lifetime ago. In
that short period of time we’d been through so much; we survived
the initial outbreak, war with our neighboring community, and a
nightmare journey through the worst winter storm I could remember.
Well, some of us survived, but many more were buried back at
Randall Oaks and several were still out there on the road, where
we’d left their bodies.
Old man Finnegan’s dead body and the
charred remains of the crazies were certainly not what we expected
to greet us upon arriving at our new home after our hard journey.
Instead of the weary resting, the injured healing, and the bereaved
receiving comfort, we labored to clear the land of the diseased
bodies and mourn the loss of our kindred, our new family. I was
thoroughly sickened by the thought that I had led my people from
the safety of Randall Oaks into chaos and uncertainty.
By midnight of our first day at
Finnegan Farms, I stood wearily before the funeral pyre of old man
Finnegan and two of his winter workhands, who died defending the
farm. The intense heat of the blaze chapped the skin of my cheeks
and made my eyes sting; yet a harsh chill still clung to me, deep
inside where the fire could not reach. Beyond the flames of the
pyre, I could see the other fires, too, dotting the landscape in
the distance where remains of the crazies burned to ash. The thick
black smoke and the deep orange glare made it appear as though the
sky was alit and our world was burning around us.
My eyes closed for a moment as I
stood surrounded by my people—so few old friends and some
new—shoulder to shoulder, trying to keep warm against the terrible
cold. The snap and pop of exploding embers from the fire and the
tendrils of its warmth that caressed me had a hypnotic effect. I
could almost imagine I was in another place, far away from the
death, but Cleona’s voice, sad and sweet brought me back to this
place:
The strife is o'er, the battle done;
the victory of life is won;
the song of triumph has begun:
Alleluia!
The powers of death have done their
worst,
but Christ their legions hath dispersed;
let shouts of holy joy outburst:
Alleluia!
The three sad days are quickly sped;
he rises glorious from the dead;
all glory to our risen Head!
Alleluia!
Lord, by the stripes which wounded thee,
from death's dread sting thy servants
free,
that we may live, and sing to thee:
Alleluia!
The old woman’s voice was like that
of an angel; she brought love into my heart and tears to my eyes.
Through blurred eyes, I turned to look at Lara and put my arms
around her and she returned my embrace. Together we stood in our
embrace watching the fire rage and listening to Cleona’s sweet
voice. She continued to sing the traditional songs of her people as
her husband’s remains turned to ash and his soul returned to
heaven.
After Cleona sang, the remaining
members of the family shared their eulogies, although I found I
could not remain focused on their words. My exhaustion was so deep
and my body craved rest. It had been just days since I had fought
off the Mad Swine infection and my body was still weak and not
fully recovered. It was a struggle to get through the next hour,
but I stood my ground in the cold and honored the man I had never
met as though he were my own kin.
Later, during the night, we managed
to get everyone temporarily settled into the big house. For a
while, there was much calamity as folks moved furniture and laid
out their bedding and made ready for much needed sleep. The
Finnegan’s were fine hosts, even during their mourning, and they
made more than a necessary fuss of getting everyone comfortable in
their new home.
Lara, Wesley, and I were given a room
on the second floor, which I assumed was Liam’s room. I had only
known the man for a short period of time, but his death still hit
me hard when I thought about it. I should have waited. I should
have planned better. I should have been better prepared.
Although I was exhausted, I knew
sleep would elude me and that I would simply lay in bed for what
was left of this night, beating myself up about things I could not
change.
After tucking Wesley in and kissing
Lara goodnight, I went downstairs again. In search of a quiet
place, I wandered into the kitchen—the only room of the house
beside the bathroom where no sleeping bodies lay—and sat at the
table. I took notice that someone had boarded over the broken
window in the door, although that did not do much to keep the cold
out; the old house was still quite frigid. Except for the fever I
endured after becoming infected, it seemed that since leaving
Randall Oaks I could not shake the cold; it penetrated my
bones.
I laid my head down on the table for
a moment, knowing I should rest, but heard movement and looked up.
Brian entered wearing his jacket and still saddled with his
backpack. A cold air followed him as he removed his backpack and
sat down across from me. For a moment, he just stared at me and
finally he reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a jar, and set
it down on the table.
“You should eat, dude, you look like
shit,” he said.
Slowly I reached out for the jar and
pulled it across the table. It was full of pickled eggs, about
eight or ten of them packed into the Ball jar. I opened it, fished
out an egg, looked at the greenish color, and brought it to my
nose. I winced at the stringent smell of vinegar. Brian smiled at
me as he pulled off his gloves.
I bit into the egg, which was
actually quite tasty. Besides, as exhausted as I was, my hunger was
double and I probably would have eaten raw fish heads in water if
they were served to me at that moment. After fishing out a second
egg, I slid the jar across to my brother who pulled one out and
looked at it. “Looks like snot.”
“Cheers,” I said and stuffed the egg
into my mouth.
As we ate from a jar of pickled eggs,
Kieran entered the kitchen and sat on the counter next to the stove
where he watched us in silence with a bemused look on his
impressionable face. Second youngest of the Finnegan boys, he
watched my brother and me with eager eyes and listened to our
conversations with open ears. He wanted to learn all he could about
the infected. He wanted to know especially how to kill them,
although it was not the creatures that had taken his father’s life
as far as we could tell.
We humored him as we finished off the
jar of eggs. Brian told him what he knew about how the infected
came to be—of which he knew very little—and how to kill them—of
which he knew a lot. Kieran leaned forward when Brian told him
about our journey and how the infected attacked us and we fought
them off. I expected him to ask about his brother, but he didn’t,
and I respected him for that.
“You know, he was bitten by one of
those things,” Brian said, pointing his thumb in my direction. “The
only person who was bitten and survived. You know why?”
Kieran shook his head vigorously. He
stared at me with wide eyes and I felt like he was pulling me
toward him, as though I was caught in his gravitational pull.
“Because he’s bad ass. He’s tough as
nails. Not even the infected can kill him.”
“
Holy
shite
,” Kieran said with a reverence
that embarrassed me.
“I’m not a bad ass—”
“Yes he is. He’s too modest to admit
it,” Brian said, enjoying my embarrassment.
I shook my head. My cheeks burned now
and the eggs in my stomach sat like hot lead. Before I could
respond, Ian entered—more like staggered—into the kitchen. He
bumped against the doorframe but quickly caught himself before he
could lose his balance. He took a few awkward steps and stood
beside the table. In the glow of the lantern, his eyes were red and
glazed with tears. He’d been crying or he’d been in the drink;
either way, he swayed as though a gust of wind battered him. He
steadied himself against the table, leaning against it for support.
His eyes took us all in, lingering on me longest. I could tell when
a man wanted trouble. I had seen this look in Comedian’s eyes
before he shot Charlie more than three months ago.
“If yer so invincible, where were ya
when my da was shot like a dog in front of his own home?” Ian
staggered a few more steps and then stood swaying. To Brian he
said, “You made me believe he was a damn warrior. All I seen,
brother, is a sick man who barely made the journey. All the time we
spent nursin’ him back to health my da was out there dying!”
“I know it’s hard to lose someone,”
Brian said.
“What happened to da wasn’t their
fault, brother,” Kieran said.