The Mortis Desolation (Book 1): Mortis (2 page)

M
y eyes opened
, and all I could see was white. I rubbed them, and they began to adjust to the light. I touched my forehead, and could feel some blood seeping through the gauze wrapped around it.

I tried sitting up, but saw black spots and almost passed out. I lay back down, and that’s when Rachel appeared by my side.

“How’re you feeling, Miles?” she asked with a faint smile. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and bags were under her eyes from a lack of sleep. “And if you say ‘like part of The Wall fell down on me,’ I will seriously punch you.”

I tried to laugh, but it was painful. “Well then, I’ll just let you guess how I feel.”

Rachel smiled again and motioned for me to sit up. “Come on, try sitting up slowly. I’ve got some food for you to eat, then we need to change that bandage.”

I tried, and while I still felt lightheaded, I was able to sit up. Rachel reached down beside my bed, and pulled a lever that raised the back of the bed, allowing me to lean back against it while still sitting.

“So what happened?” I asked her as she turned to grab some food off a table.

“The Xenomortis caused the part of The Wall that you and Andrew were standing on to collapse. You lost consciousness when you hit, as did Andrew. He’s fine, before you ask. Just a little beat up.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Rachel sat the tray that held a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of water on my lap, and I began eating it. “What about all the zombies? None of them got in, did they?”

Rachel slowly nodded as she looked away. “They did. I’m not sure what all happened, but Pike was out there and he saw what-all happened. He’ll explain everything to you.”

My stomach twisted and I wasn’t very hungry anymore. “Is everyone okay?”

Rachel nodded again. “No one died, but they did a lot of damage, and the zombies are still coming. They’re killing a handful every hour.”

For us, that was a lot. Our camp was in a relatively small town that had been pretty much cleared out by the time the virus was unleashed, so there weren’t that many zombies around. We had to kill maybe five or six a day, but a handful an hour? That was unheard of.

“Hurry up and eat,” Rachel said. “I’m not letting anyone in here until you do.”

I wolfed down the oatmeal and gulped down the water. I felt energized and ready to go. “I’m finished!” I shouted out the open door. Rachel came in from her office and took my tray away.

“Alright, I’ll bring Pike in, but I’m going to be changing your bandage while he talks.”

I nodded. “Yeah, okay, that’s fine.”

She exited out the room once more, and in came Pike.

Pike’s long black hair was unusually disheveled, and his face dirty. Still, he smiled when he saw me. “How you feeling, man?”

“Like part of The Wall fell on me,” I said, giving a sideways glance to Rachel, who rolled her eyes.

“I hear ya. Listen, I know you’re not feeling too good right now, but we could really use you.”

Rachel began unwrapping my bandage, and I winced in pain as the gauze stuck to my oozing wound. “Yeah, this is nothing major. I can help.”

“Okay, good. Me, you, John, and Julia are going to go scout out where we can find some supplies to begin rebuilding part of The Wall. We’re planning on leaving later today.”

The fact that Rachel wasn’t protesting made me worried. She knew that they needed all the help they could get.

“What’s going on out there?” I asked.

Pike sighed and shook his head. “Things got insane after you went out. It was just a wall of zombies, but thankfully we were able to keep them contained. Some of them got onto the grounds, but none of them made it into the bank. There’s only a few coming every hour or so, so it’s not bad. We just need to get The Wall back up as soon as possible. They’re already clearing the debris so we can start once we have the supplies, and they’re working double time getting the trench dug deep. There’s just a lot of zombie corpses in there that we have to clean out.

“Truth is, if we have another night like last night…” Pike didn’t even have to finish.

Rachel began wrapping new gauze around my head, and the fresh, tight, clean bandage felt amazing.

“What about the Xenomortis?” I asked.

“I don’t know where the hell that thing came from. I’ve never even seen one in person!”

I nodded. “Yeah, they’re mostly up around the Northeast, where most of the Xenos were.”

“I wonder what one was doing all the way down here, then?”

I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe there were some in Dallas and it finally found its way out. I’ve actually seen a couple of them before, back at the beginning, but it’s been years since I’ve seen another. I figured they were mostly dead or gone somewhere else.”

Pike stood there, thinking. He was clearly shaken, which worried me. If he was going to lead our squad, he needed to have nerves of steel. Then again, we were talking about Xenomortises here, creatures a hundred times worse than a regular zombie.

“Okay, well, I should go. The Board is having an impromptu Q&A in about thirty. After that, we’ll leave.”

I nodded my head. “Sounds good. I’ll be there.”

Pike smiled and exited the room.

“I’m guessing you’re going to the Q&A?” Rachel asked me as she packed up the bandages.

“I have to,” I said as I swung my feet off the bed. “I’m one of the founders, I can’t look weak now.”

“Well, it doesn’t change the fact that you are, so try taking it easy, alright?”

“I’ll try, Rachel, but I doubt things are going to get easy just yet.”

I
walked into Common Room
, where the Q&A was to take place. In front, there were seven chairs lined up. Just seven. At the beginning there were fifteen, and just a few days ago, eight. But now with Ashley’s death, her chair was removed. As I walked to the front, I fought back the emotions that began to come to me. The thought of serving on the board without Ashley was frightening. She was my shoulder to lean on. She always had my back. And now she was gone.

I sat down in my chair on the far right (left to the audience), and waited for it to start. I didn’t want to speak to anybody. I was just there for show. But then Daniel, a founder in his twenties, sat down next to me, and started talking.

“How’re you feeling, Miles?” he said, leaning in.

“A little beat up, but I’ll be fine.”

“You going out with Pike later?” He flashed a smile and ran his fingers through his bushy blond hair.

“Yeah,” I said giving him a dirty look. “Of course I am, that’s my squad.”

Daniel held up his hands and leaned back. “Hey, man, no need to get defensive.”

I felt guilty and gritted my teeth. I hated snapping at Daniel like that, but I didn’t say anything about it. I couldn’t apologize for every little thing.

Daniel didn’t say anything else. He started talking to Rachel whenever she came and sat down on his other side. It was fine with me; I just sat there and listened.

“Have you talked to George?” Daniel asked Rachel.

“No, I’ve been busy keeping an eye on Miles and Andrew. Plus Lisa has the flu, so my hands have been full.”

“Doesn’t
sound
like a lot,” Daniel teased.

Rachel hit him on his arm. “Shut up, asshole. Let’s see you try.”

Daniel grabbed Rachel’s hand and smiled. “I’m just messing with you, babe.”

Rachel smiled at him, and kissed him on the forehead.

I stopped paying attention to them, jealousy filling me. That could’ve been me and Ashley, but no. I had just talked to her about it before we left on the scouting trip that claimed her life.

“Why can’t we be together?”
I had asked her.
“Give me a clear answer, because I’m tired of guessing.”

She looked me straight in the eyes, unblinking, like she’d practiced this in the mirror a million times before. “Because it would just end in pain. Nothing lasts in this world anymore, not even death. I’m just trying to save us the heartache.

Tears crept out of my eyes, no matter how hard I tried to keep them in. “You’re not the same, Ashley. You’re just not the same.”

And it was the truth.

At least she’s in a better place, now,
I thought.

“Miles?” I heard someone shout, breaking me out of my daze. I looked around, and saw it was George. He was standing up from his seat in the middle, looking at me, his eyebrows raised. “Well?” he said.

I looked out and saw the crowd of people looking at me. The Q&A had already started, and I didn’t even notice.

“Sorry,” I said. “What was it?”

George smiled, enthusiasm radiating from him. One of the reasons we chose him to be the leader. “It’s okay, buddy. I know you took a little knock to the head!”

The crowd chuckled, and I gave a fake laugh.

“I asked how long it would take to get The Wall repaired?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t taken a look at the damage. It shouldn’t take long, though, once we get the supplies. We’ll work day and night to get safety restored.”

“What about if another one of those Xenomortals comes?” Henry Jenkins, a chubby thirty-year-old asked.

“
Xenomortises
,” George corrected him. “And we’ll do what we did this time: kill it.”

“Yeah, because that worked out
so
well for us,” a woman said.

I rolled my eyes.
You try killing one,
I thought.

“These things aren’t easy to kill, but now that we have a better idea of how to do so, they shouldn’t be too difficult.
If
we ever even encounter one again! This is the first one we’ve seen in over a year, and
that
one was the first one we saw ever! These things are obviously rare around here. I doubt we’ll see another one for a long time, if ever.”

“But what about all the zombies? There’s a lot more than usual,” Gerry, one of our guards, asked.

George scoffed. “What about them? The number of zombies we see is always fluctuating. The number we’re seeing now isn’t a problem! We’re easily taking them out.”

“I wanna know more about the Xenomortises!” Tonya, one of the older adults, asked.

George sighed. “I’ll let Peter handle this one.” He turned to Peter, who sat next to Rachel. “Pete?”

Pete fixed his glasses as he stood. He was short and wasn’t very fit, but what he lacked in physicality he more than made up for in mental aptitude. “Well,” he began. “First of all, everyone knows where they come from, correct?”

Some people muttered no and shook their heads.

“Well, the Cliff Notes version is that basically the virus that turned humans into zombies, had the same but opposite effect on the Xenos.”

Everybody looked at him with blank faces.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Henry shouted.

Peter cleared his throat and searched the ceiling, as if the moldy tiles held the explanation he searched for. “The virus—or The Kane, as I like to call it—turns any dead person into a zombie. Slow moving, head shots only, dangerous in large group, etc. Typical zombie.
However,
for the Xenos, it had the
opposite
effect. It made them stronger, faster, caused their skin to become even harder. They’re still dead. Still, quote unquote,
zombies
. It’s just that they’re as powerful as a hundred human zombies combined.”

“But,” George interrupted before Peter horrified the crowd even more. “Most of the Xenos in America were in the Northeast. The Xenomortis that attacked us last night either walked for a
really
long time, or fled down here when the virus began to take over. But I assure you, they will not be a problem to us. Right now our main concern is getting The Wall back up.”

There were a few more questions, mostly about things like how guard duty was going to work now that they needed more people. But nothing too exciting. I just wanted to hurry up and get it over with so I could go out and search for supplies.

Finally, after another forty-five minutes, the meeting was over.

“Everybody have a good day, and please, stay safe,” George said.

We all stood, and people began mingling and talking. I made a beeline for Pike.

“You ready?” he asked me.

I nodded my head. “Let’s go.”

P
ike grabbed my shoulder
. “I know things are getting crazy, but try and take it easy, alright?”

I shook his hand off. “Yeah alright,” I mumbled. I just wanted to focus on the mission, and Pike’s sympathy was distracting.

I climbed out of the back of the van, Pike following behind me. John and Julia were already out, scanning the perimeter.

“Thanks for joining us, Julia,” Pike said with a teasing smile.

Julia rolled her eyes. “Figured you could use the help. I’m not staying away from my van for long, though. No Rove better come around and steal it.”

Pike chuckled. “Don’t worry, we won’t be gone long. We’re just scouting. Another group will come later with trucks to get the supplies.”

“We should hurry,” I said cutting their talk short. “We need to get that Wall back up.”

John nodded. “Yeah so shut up, Julia.”

Julia punched him in the arm. “You shut up.”

“Ohhh, good one,” John teased.

“
Hey!
” Pike shouted. “Miles is right. Cut the shit, we gotta move.”

I looked at Pike and he gave me a slight nod. It felt good to know we were on the same page.

We began walking toward the hardware store. Jack, Pike, and myself all walked in unison. Julie lagged behind a bit, but that was to be expected. She almost never went out into the field. She stayed behind and waited in her van, because usually there were a group of Roves or zombies behind us, so the getaway had to be quick. But with us being so short-handed, we needed Julia. I just hoped we weren't going to need to make a quick getaway too.

We reached the doors of the hardware store. Julia and John swung them open, and Pike and I walked inside, guns raised, scanning the area for any hostiles. The high noon sun lit up most of the interior, but there were still long shadows causing everything to be covered in slight darkness. Our eyes began to adjust, and I heard Pike curse.

"Damn," he said under his breath.

Damn was right. There was nothing in the store except for some shelves that held nothing but a thick layer of dust.

"I don't know what I was expecting," Pike said as he turned to me. "But I was hoping there'd be something. Anything!"

Defeat began to sink in, and I cursed myself. I couldn't believe I was already letting this get to me. We had just taken two steps inside the door; we couldn't give up now. "We need to keep searching. We haven't even checked the yard in the back," I said.

"If there's nothing in here, there's definitely not going to be anything out there," John said.

"So we're not even going to look? Seriously?" I asked him, dumbfounded.

John shrugged. "I didn't say that, I was just saying. Don't get your hopes up."

I felt a bit of guilt hit me for snapping. I sighed. "Yeah, I know. Don't worry, my hopes definitely aren't up. Let's go take a look."

"Alright, let's move. Guns up and lights on; no telling what could be hiding in the shadows," Pike said.

We turned on the flashlights that were attached to the barrels of our guns. The four lights illuminated the room. You could see their beams because of all the dust in the space. The particles danced around the room, whisked around by the breeze that blew through the broken windows. We began walking toward the door in the back, scanning our guns back and across around the room as we went, checking for any signs of the living or the dead.

The store really had been picked dry. I was frankly a little surprised the shelves were still there, because everything else was gone. Even the tile floor had been stripped up. The possibility of there being any wood left in the yard was next to none. I tried not to think about it, to try and have hope, but I was finding that hard to do.

We almost made it to the back exit of the store before hearing a scuffling sound to our right. All four of us swiveled on our feet with precision, and aimed our guns down the empty aisle, the beams of our flashlights penetrating the dusty darkness. I instantly became aware of my heartbeat, how it began to increase in both speed and intensity. I loosened my left hand’s grip on the barrel of my assault rifle and got a better grip. I had a feeling I was going to need it.

I examined the aisle as far as I could see, but there was nothing. The dust danced with deceiving elegance. There was something hiding in the shadows; I knew it.

Just as I was about to take a step down the aisle to get a closer look, I saw them. A set of eyes reflecting like cats. Whatever the eyes belonged to was too far away for us to see the rest of the body. All we could see was the set of reflecting eyes staring at us, shrouded in dust and darkness.

“Is it a zombie?” John whispered.

“Zombie eyes don’t reflect like cats’ or dog eyes do,” I carefully whispered back. I tightened the grip on my gun.

“Well then, what the hell is it?”

The creature answered John’s question for us. It crawled toward us with lightning speed, a multitude of legs sprawling from its hardened body like the legs of a spider. Its shiny black body hugged the ground. The creature opened its mouth, revealing what looked to be dozens of thin, long, sharp teeth.

We were so taken aback, and then paralyzed by fear, that we forgot to fire our weapons. I shook myself out of it, though, and squeezed the trigger of my gun. The flash of the muzzle lit up the aisle as the bullets ripped through the creature with ease, sending bits of its body flying everywhere along with black blood.

The creature came sliding to a halt just a couple of feet away from us. Its body twitched, and I put a couple more bullets into it for good measure.

The four of us stood there for a few moments, just staring at the body, not saying a word. We were all thinking the same thing, though. Where the hell had this creature come from? We were too busy trying to figure out what the creature was that we weren’t asking ourselves the most important question: were there more?

And the answer was yes.