The Reawakening (The Living Dead Trilogy, Book 1) (19 page)

“I’ll take the shift after you,” Dar said.

“Good. We’re going to have a busy day tomorrow. I only have enough gas to keep the generator going for maybe a couple of weeks at best. And we don’t know how long we’ll be cooped up inside here, staving off these things. We’re going to need to take the truck into town tomorrow and fill a couple of hundred gallon barrels with gas.”

“What about the snow? The roads won’t be plowed, and they’ll be plenty more of them troglodytes walking along the road,” Thorn said.

“I’ve got a plow on the truck. That baby will mow those suckers down like weeds. With its oversized tires, that truck can get through most anything.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Dar said.

“With Little Annie Oakley riding shotgun, we’ll put a lot of those son-of-bitches out of their misery. Now I suggest the rest of you get some shut-eye. Gunner, it’s best you stay with the children in the living room.”

“I ain’t leaving their sides.” Gunner burped and then staggered into the other room, obviously drunk.

Thorn stood and stretched, and turned to Rick. “I’m no freeloader like you made me out to be, man. Just because I drank a few beers tonight don’t make me a bad dude.”

“Never said you were bad. But this isn’t Friday night at Murphy’s Tavern, kid, where all you’re fighting is a bunch of drunks after last call. In here, you have to carry your weight instead of telling bullshit stories and playing cards. I know your type.”

“Dude, you don’t know shit about me.”

“Hell I don’t. I used to be a professor of biology. Taught a lot of smartasses like you. Good-looking guys with half a brain in their head, think they know everything about anything. Walk around campus like they own the place because they were born witty and can make people laugh, maybe convince a pretty girl to hang on their arm.”

“Hey, don’t patronize me. Just because you took me in doesn’t mean you can treat me like shit,” he said, stepping threateningly towards Rick.

“What the hell are you going to do to me that I haven’t already seen, huh? My wife died in my arms and turned into one of those monsters, then had to be put down. Thom had to drag her mutated corpse outside and put a torch to her feral body. So you think I’m afraid of a punk like you just because you drive a Harley?”

“Look, I haven’t told anyone,” Thorn said, “but my brother died in my arms just before he turned into one of those things. I had to put a bullet in his head, and it’s messed me up ever since. And Brian said some weird shit before he changed.”

“What did he say?” I asked, perking up. “Did he talk about the afterlife?”

He turned to me with a surprised expression on his face. “Yeah, how’d you know that?”

“The dead exhibit a form of this behavior after they’ve reawakened,” Rick said.

“It takes place in the first few minutes after they’ve died. It’s almost as if they’re trying to tell us something profound about their afterlife experience,” I said.

Tears dripped down Thorn’s cheeks. “Dude said he loved me and was sorry for all the shit he’d done to me in the past. Admitted that he wasted some innocent civilians in Iraq that no one knew about, except him, and that he was real sorry for killing them. Then he said something strange, something about searching for the chosen ones.”

“Chosen ones? What do you think he meant by that?” I asked.

“Hell if I know. He said it twice before he changed.”

“My brother is under the impression that this is proof of some afterlife. He thinks these freaks are messengers sent from God, or something silly like that.”

“I don’t believe in God. Never accepted all that religious bullshit.”

“Now that’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said all day, Thorn,” Rick said.

“There’s a difference between being spiritual and being religious. So I don’t care what you two say, you’re not going to change my mind,” I said. “Thorn’s brother mentioned the chosen ones. But chosen for what? What else could they all be talking about other than an afterlife?”

“It’s the brain playing tricks on them as it works feverishly to regenerate into its new state. Clearly, it’s an evolutionary trick used to attract fresh prey and pass on the virus. This new, rebooted brain has a plethora of electromagnetic qualities beneficial to the regenerative state, which is why these things are so desperate to get hold of some healthy brain cells. They feed off electromagnetic properties.”

“Look, I’m a hardcore nonbeliever, but I know my brother, and he would never say such a thing if he didn’t really mean it. Maybe he did see something after he died and was trying to tell me about it.”

“He died, Thorn, and joined the ranks of the undead. Don’t fool yourself, son. Once the plug is pulled, everything goes dark,” Rick said. “And if we don’t hang together, we may all end up like them, with our plugs permanently pulled from the sockets of our consciousness.”

“Maybe you got it all backwards, professor, with all your scientific theories and academic bullshit. Have you ever considered the fact that maybe we’re the ones walking around dead and those creeps out there are the normal ones?”

“That’s crazy talk.” Rick laughed nervously.

“Is it? Because if you ask me, this life we’re now living is hell on earth. Think I’d rather be dead than have to live the rest of my life like this, holed up and constantly fighting off those things.”

“Well, kid, keep drinking and acting like an asshole and you just might get your wish,” Rick said. “Now who’s coming with me in the morning to get some gas?”

Thorn and I agreed to go with him and Dar, which meant that Gunner would remain with the kids. Once the matter was settled, we retired for the night. Drunk, I passed out in my bed and had the best night of sleep in days.

The sleep of the dead.

Chapter 13

C
OME MORNING, WE PULLED ON OUR
winter coats, grabbed the rifles, and waited outside for Rick. The dead stood frozen in the snow like statues, evil immortalized in ice. Rick retrieved the truck from the barn where it was parked and pulled up alongside the house. The truck was outfitted with oversized tires and a powerful engine that rumbled loudly when idling. A thick coat of snow blanketed the land and surrounding hillsides. Thorn and I climbed into the bed and next to the empty steel barrels, while Dar hopped in on the passenger side. The snow fell light and fluffy, but it hadn’t relented. The truck revved and idled, clouds of white smoke billowing out of the tailpipe.

Rick stepped on the gas, and we rocketed forward, the plow easily pushing the snow and carcasses off to the side. He made a couple of paths through the driveway, vanquishing the standing dead before turning onto the main road. The drifts varied in height, but the truck had no problem plowing through the powder. I stared up at all the trees arched over the road and noticed that the branches lay bare and coated in brilliant icicles. Some of the branches had broken off due to the weight of the wet snow and were strewn across the crust like old bones.

About a quarter mile down the road, Rick shouted out the window, but I couldn’t hear him because of the cold wind. Thorn, squatting next to me, had a scarf wrapped around his long thin face. Rick shouted out again, and I stood up to try to hear what he was saying. A clean path of road stretched behind us in the plow’s wake. By the time I turned back around, I saw the creatures fifty yards ahead of us. About a dozen of them struggled in vain to make their way through the vast ocean of snow covering the land. They glared up at us helplessly, arms held above their ice-covered heads, screaming and moaning as the wind whipped through their rotted flesh and thinning hair.

I looked to my right and saw Dar sitting on the open window frame, resting the rifle on the roof of the cab. Concentrating, she took aim and with one shot put a bullet between the eyes of a man donning a Red Sox baseball hat. He rocked back in his pocket of snow but remained vertically frozen in his four-foot grave. Thorn laughed as she shot the others. Brain matter lay splattered along the fresh powder. Soon it would be hidden by the still-falling snow. Once she killed the lot of them, Dar let out a war cry, pumping her fist triumphantly in the air. Rick hit the gas and plowed through the dead, pushing them off to the side of the road. They left no trace of blood or innards in the packed snow, just specks of gray-green brain matter like sprinkles on top of a vanilla ice cream cone.

I sat back down in the bed of the truck, shivering, with my back up against the cold, metallic cab. The rifle stood parallel to my torso, the butt resting on the bed. In the background stood the majestic snow-covered hills of northern Maine, obfuscated by the whitening mass. We passed some old, majestic farmhouses along the way, and I wondered what horrors would be found inside them once this event had run its course.

Another cry went up. Thorn and I stood up. My hands and feet felt numb from the cold, even though I was wearing thermal gloves and L.L. Bean boots laced tightly over several thick pairs of socks. Up ahead, I noticed another group of the dead huddled on the driver’s side of the road. Rick stopped the truck maybe twenty feet from them, and we watched as they howled in anticipation of our arrival, clawing through the chest-high snow to try to reach us, but not making much progress.

To my horror, I noticed that they’d been feasting on human flesh. Two ravaged bodies lay in pieces along the crust, bright splotches of blood staining the virgin whiteness. The creatures had gnawed on the bleached bones, which had been completely picked clean of meat and marrow. Two empty skulls sat on the snow bank, as hollow as porcelain bowls. At the sight of them, I leaned over the side of the truck and puked. I looked over at Thorn and registered the horrified expression on his face.

“What the hell you guys waiting for?” Rick shouted.

“It’s your turn to dust them,” Dar added.

Thorn moved over next to me, lifted his rifle, and began to fire. I followed his lead. My first shot hit one of them in the shoulder, and yet it kept reaching out to us, arms extended as if begging for alms. My second shot missed altogether and pinged off one of the empty skulls. I felt embarrassed by my sorry attempts, especially considering how accurate Thorn was with his. But I could barely feel my hands, they were so cold. My entire body was shivering, and I couldn’t hold the gun long enough to fire an accurate shot. By the time the truck started moving again, I realized that Thorn and Dar had managed to kill every single one of them. I stared at the grisly scene as it slowly receded from view.

When we reached the gas station located at the center of the small town, Rick drove around in circles, plowing the area clean before pulling up next to one of the gas pumps. Miraculously, the power was still on. The windows had all been shattered and various items remained on the shelves.

“I used to work at a gas station, so I’ll go inside and set up the pumps,” Thorn said, jumping over the side. He ran inside the store and began to configure them.

Rick passed up the nozzle, and in a matter of minutes, I began to fill the barrels with gas. Dar stood guard on top of the cab’s roof, holding the rifle and keeping watch. Every so often, I heard a gunshot go off, and when I looked up, I saw that she had shot another creature off in the distance. I stared inside the store and noticed a creature rising up from behind the counter. Thorn had his back turned and didn’t see it. I shouted out to warn him, but he didn’t hear me until the last second. He turned on a dime, raised the rifle, and then blasted the woman’s head clear off.

After the two barrels had been filled, we capped them and pushed them to the back of the bed to add extra weight to the truck. Rick ordered everybody to return. Thorn came sauntering back with a pile of goodies in his arms: a few cases of soda, chips, candy, beef jerky and cupcakes. Leaning over the side of the truck, he dropped the items onto the bed and then hopped back in. Gusts of fierce wind blew down and blasted our exposed areas of skin. Thorn picked up his rifle and slung it over his shoulder.

“Thanks, buddy. I didn’t see Cheryl behind the counter sneaking up on me.”

“You knew her?”

“In the biblical sense.” He winked. “She looked about the same as she did the last time I saw her, spread-eagled and ready to give head.”

“She gave you head all right, clear across the store.”

“Good one, Tommy. Too bad about her, because she was quite a beast in the sack,” he said, laughing. “Good thing I wore a banana peel. Might have caught something nasty if I hadn’t.”

“You’re lucky she didn’t bite off your manhood.”

“Damn right. Because we all know us men think with our dicks. That’s where our real brains are located.”

“What did you take?”

“Few cases of Moxie, although it’s frozen solid. Love that shit. That cheap-ass brother of yours buys only the generic brand of soda.”

“Free soda is the best soda. Still, you couldn’t pay me to drink that stuff.”

“Moxie’s the bomb, dude, one of Maine’s finest culinary contributions. Goes great with Southern Comfort, too.”

“I take it you haven’t tried the lobster here yet?”

“Born and bred in Maine, bro, but I can’t stomach seafood. Rather eat your kidney than anything comes out of the ocean.” He backhanded me in the chest. “What the hell happened back there? Not exactly the best shooting I’ve ever seen.”

“My hands are so goddamn cold, I can’t even feel them,” I said. “I can barely feel any of my extremities.”