The Reawakening (The Living Dead Trilogy, Book 1) (10 page)

“Got a better name for them?”

“No, that’s as good as any.”

“They’re fuckers who need a good ass-kicking.”

“They need more than an ass-kicking, Dar. They need a bullet to their brains.”

“I’m going to make it my mission in life to end their miserable existence.”

I turned and watched her laugh. It was a strange laugh, sad and yet filled with a demonic determination. This was a side of her I’d never before seen. The trauma of what happened in those woods had triggered something dark inside her. When I looked out the windshield, I saw a moose standing in the middle of the road and directly in our path. I shouted for her to hit the brakes, throwing my arms up over my face at the last second.

Chapter 7

D
AR HIT THE BRAKES, AND THE
BMW skidded across the road, fishtailing from side to side until the front end struck the moose near its hind leg. The moose flew up in the air. It crashed onto the roof and cracked the windshield, glass shattering everywhere. My head snapped back from the impact of the air bags as the car lurched to a screeching halt. The full weight of the moose now rested above our heads. Metal twisted and creaked all around us; steam hissed from the ruined engine. I glanced above the bag’s fabric and noticed that the moose’s rack hung just over my head. Another inch and I would have been killed. I staggered out of the vehicle, my head and neck throbbing in pain, and limped around to the driver’s side. Dar’s face rested flat against the bag, and she appeared unconscious. I unbuckled her seat belt and dragged her out of the car, placing her down in the middle of the road.

A car approached from the opposite side—the first vehicle I had seen since we started out. I ran over to flag it down, but it swerved around me and sped away
. Shit!
I went back to Dar and noticed the moose writhing on top of the car, blood pouring from a nasty wound on its head. Kicking and bleating, it tried to extricate itself from the wreckage. A large, continuous gash began at its mangled legs and continued up to its blood-soaked underbelly. It wouldn’t live long in this condition. Dar regained consciousness and managed to prop herself up on her elbows. She appeared groggy and dazed, but other than a deep gash across her forehead, she seemed fine. I lifted her to her feet.

“What just happened?” she asked.

“You hit a moose. I told you to keep your eyes on the road.”

“Damn! Now they’ll never give me my driver’s license.”

“I won’t say anything if you don’t.”

“Cool.”

I ran back to the car and retrieved the two rifles. I hooked one around my back and passed the other to her.

“We might need these in case something else decides to attack us. The car’s not going anywhere, from the looks of it. We’re going to have to hoof it back to the farm.”

“So much for German engineering.”

“When nature meets German engineering, Dar, nature usually wins. I’m guessing that Rick’s place is probably a mile or two from here.” I examined the wound on her head. “That’s a nasty little cut you got there. Will you be able to make it?”

“I’m fine. Come on, Dad, let’s get the hell out of here before something else happens.” She turned and stared at the moose still bucking up and down on the car. “We can’t leave it like this. We need to put it down.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I’ll do it.”

I took the rifle off my shoulder and walked around to the side of the car. Steam shot out of the moose’s nostrils, and he glared at me with his big black eyes. The odor of shit and gas emanating from his ripped entrails nearly made me vomit. Above us the birds circled in the sky. Birds of all types and shapes soared, weaving back and forth like some bizarre quilt pattern. I lifted the gun and prepared to shoot the wounded animal. I felt no sympathy for this moose, having just killed a human being. How hard would it be to kill a moose? The more I killed, the less troubled I felt by doing it. I felt like a soldier in the heat of battle, just trying to stay alive. The moose brayed and kicked as I aimed at its head. I pulled the trigger and shot a hole through its left eye. The echo reverberated in the air, ringing loudly in my ears.

“Come on,” I said, limping off.

Dar stared skyward and let out a frightening war cry that left me unhinged. She turned to me with a haunted look on her face. “I’ll never be the same after this is over.”

“None of us will. But we don’t have time to discuss our feelings right now.”

“Uncle Rick was right. You have to learn to be self-sufficient if you want to survive in this world. Forget about words, concepts and ideas. They mean nothing now.”

“Words and ideas put food on our table and a roof over our heads.”

“Maybe at one time they did, but what good is it doing us now?”

Another car approached from the opposite side. I tried to flag it down, but like the other one, it swerved around us and sped down the road. I turned and glanced at Dar. Blood flowed from the sides of her face. She tried to wipe it away, but the wound wouldn’t stop bleeding. We needed to stop somewhere and bandage her head, but there was nowhere on this long stretch of road where we could find help. We were on our own, and it appeared that none of the passing cars would stop to help us.

“Over there,” Dar said, pointing to a small embankment, upon which stood an old country house. It was nearly hidden behind a clump of elms and maples. Next to it sat a pickup truck in the dirt driveway. “Maybe we can stop at that house and see if the people inside will help us.”

“Might as well try.”

I put my arm around Dar’s shoulder and helped her along the yellow median strip. Above us, the branches acted like an arcade, blocking the view of the birds circling above. The caws and screeches sounded like something out of a horror movie. Thirty yards from the dilapidated house I heard a rhythmic tapping along the pavement. The noise got louder as we staggered ahead. I turned and, to my horror, saw the moose making a mad dash towards us.

I pushed Dar out of the way and aimed my rifle, but the moose clipped me before I could fire off a round. I flew through the air and landed in a clump of shrubbery near the shoulder of the road. My ribcage felt seared, and every breath felt like a dagger in my side. The moose pawed the ground and glared at me, steam hissing out of its flared nostrils. Its long legs were broken and twisted at an odd angle. How had it carried its massive weight on such mangled twigs? Blood and brain matter clung to its glistening fur. Its left eye was gone. It bared its yellow teeth and brayed. Then it lowered its massive rack and charged.

I tried in vain to pull myself up, but the pain in my ribcage was so severe that I collapsed back onto the shoulder, barely able to move. It ran straight at me, and I knew if it reached me I was a dead man. Without warning, it collapsed at my feet. The odor of death and decomposition filled my nose as the gunshot echoed in the air. When I turned around, I saw Dar holding the rifle, a whorl of smoke wafting from the end of the barrel.

“Peace out, motherfucker!”

“Damn!” I said, staring down at the dead moose, a second bullet hole in its skull.

“Get up, Dad. I’ve a feeling that there’ll be plenty more of these dead fuckers waiting for us.”

She held out her hand and helped me up. My entire body pulsed with pain, and it felt like I’d collided with a cement truck. Dar’s face looked horrific. Blood streaked down her forehead and sluiced between her eyes and across her reddened cheeks. She stared coldly at me as she hooked the rifle around her shoulder. Twenty-four hours ago, I feared she might suffer a nervous breakdown requiring medical attention. Now she seemed not only to have accepted this tragic situation, but to have risen to the challenge.

We limped toward the dilapidated house on the knoll, and as we did, I pondered this new threat to our existence. The world had long been headed down this dangerous new path. Global warming, wars, and economic crisis among other things had done us in. It didn’t leave much room for optimism. Our food and water sources had been seriously compromised by industrial toxins and man-made pollutants. Poultry and livestock supplies had for years been bolstered with drugs and were made to suffer in horrible, overcrowded conditions. Wildlife in Africa had been slaughtered to near extinction. Human genocide continued to proliferate in Africa and parts of Asia. Human rights throughout the world had not come to pass, and women were generally treated as second-class citizens. It was no wonder the planet seemed to have flipped some switch and caused the unthinkable to happen.

Dar and I climbed the broken concrete steps that led to the house. The rail had long ago been knocked off its foundation, and it leaned inward at an awkward angle. Weeds and overgrown grass overran the hilly lawn on either side of us. My entire body shivered from the cold and debilitating pain. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees in the last hour. I prayed that the people who lived here could help us out, as I didn’t think I could travel much longer in this condition.

Dar reached the door first and rapped against the wood. I clasped a hand to my ribs and winced in pain, praying that someone might answer.

“No one’s home,” I said after a few minutes passed.

“Let’s go inside and see for ourselves.”

She pounded on the door with her fist, and it swung open. Stepping inside, we saw piles of trash heaped near a couple of tattered couches and along the wall. Paint flakes dangled from the ceiling, and the walls were covered in floral wallpaper that looked to have been put up in the forties. An old television set with rabbit ears sat on a collapsed metal stand. Spider webs dangled from every corner of the room, and mold covered portions of the walls. Dead bugs lay trapped inside spider webs, wrapped tight in silky balls of thread. As bad as it looked, I could tell that someone had recently been living inside this house. Dar walked over and switched on the TV set.

“Maybe we can get some news and see if these things are turning up elsewhere.”

“Good idea,” I said, sitting gingerly on the ragged arm of the couch.

She turned the knob until the static formed into a fuzzy picture. It wasn’t the clearest video I’d ever seen, but the sound was good, and we could at least make out what was going on. A male reporter sat at a desk and reported on the events of the day. Underneath him, the caption said that this was a special report. We sat there, stunned by what he was saying.

Most of the world economies were on the verge of collapse. The American dollar had lost much of its value in the world market, and China was now making threatening statements. The American dollars the Chinese held in reserve were now worthless. Riots had ensued throughout the world, especially in many of the big cities in Europe and the United States. The euro had ceased being a valid currency. Russia had instituted martial law, and rumor was circulating that they’d been violently repressing protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Fundamentalist religions, Christianity in particular, were announcing this as a sign of the end of days. Muslim uprisings were threatening Israel, and some of the more moderate Muslim countries like Turkey had seen a dramatic increase in religious Jihadism.

“Think Mom and the little asshole are okay down in Boston?” Dar asked, ripping off a shred of curtain and wrapping it around her forehead.

“The Back Bay’s a pretty safe neighborhood, so I’m praying to God that they’re okay,” I said. “And please don’t refer to Stephen like that. Your brother saved your life that day.”

“Wish he hadn’t.”

“You don’t know how bad he felt about it. We all prayed that you’d make it.”

“What’s praying going to do for anyone? God is a myth perpetrated by the weak and the helpless.”

“You’ve been listening to your uncle Rick for too long.”

“Well, it really doesn’t matter what you or I believe,” she said, shrugging. “And even supposing God exists, God helps those who help themselves, right?”

“You’re making a valid point.”

“Besides, you really think a loving god would allow people to come back to life so they could consume human flesh? Seriously doubt that, dude.”

“I don’t want to get into a theology debate with you, Dar, but suffice to say that there’s a reason why everything happens in this world.”

“Believe what you want, Dad. From here on out, I’m going to believe only in myself. Dar is god. God is Dar.” She picked up the phone and put it to her ear. “Dead, like every other goddamn thing around here. Only this line isn’t coming back to life. Where’s Verizon when you really need them?”

“Very funny.”

“They’re not mentioning anything on TV about these fuckers coming back to life. This shit must only be happening around here. But why northern Maine?”

“Don’t know.” I stood. “Do you see the keys to that truck lying around? Maybe if we can get it started, we can drive it back to the farm.”

“I don’t see them, but if they’re here, I’ll sniff them out.”

I hobbled around the room, tossing things aside, searching for the keys. Dar rifled through the drawers of a table near the front door. After a few minutes, she discovered them inside a pocketbook located in the pantry. One of the keys had the Ford logo stamped on it, the same make as the pickup out in the driveway. We set about to leave when we heard a noise coming from the back of the house. It sounded like a scream.