Dead World (Book 2): Headed North

1

Hardin Montana

The sun sets, casting amber light over a wall of reinforced plywood and other scrapped together detritus. Peter Kormine walks along the wall enjoying the last rays of the sun’s light. He has been so busy of late that it is nice to finally have a moment to be outside and just enjoy the evening. He knows it won’t last long.

To say it has been a stressful few weeks would be an understatement. It all started when he got a call from his brother John, a dutiful if somewhat dull police officer in Denver, he started talking about rioting. The world was going crazy he said. And he was pissed because they were pulling him from his night off to go on duty. That was the last he had ever heard from him.

Then the world really went crazy, just like he said.

Everything happened fast. It struck the bigger cities first and radiated out like ripples in a pond. At least that was the best he could figure. Luckily for him the people of Hardin were not unaccustomed to the harder things in life.

They had been through tornado seasons, been through the times when it got so cold and the snow got so high that they couldn’t get trucks in or out for weeks. But all of that was nothing compared to what was going on out there.

They watched on TV as Billings went to hell. Watched the reports of people massacring each other and then the dead coming back to attack the living. It was bad, really bad.

But he and a few of the more resourceful people had worked together to secure their town as soon as it started. It’s not that he was ever a survivalist freak, but he was willing to do more than most.

They had walled off a section of the town as quickly as they could. They made a hastily erected fortress. Spanning from Third up Center Avenue and then wrapping around to County Road 321. It was several miles of fence to lie down only a few days to get it done, but it had been done.

Of course not everyone could be saved. And there were still people trapped outside of the wall. That was sure. They had heard the screams every now and again, but by now most of them have turned, or gone silent.

They had their own cases of break outs. Those early days were not easy on anyone. They had to kill friends, relatives, and neighbors. All sorts of folks that he would have told anyone were good people. But once the change happened it was either be harder than the dead or join them. And Peter doesn’t know how to give up.

The first few weeks had been really bad for the survivors. Those outside of the wall, practically the whole south of town were fairly stranded. If they could make it then they were helped but most of them scattered or decided to try to wait for help in the comfort of their homes.

And then the dead gathered outside the walls, pounding and trying to force their way in.

Below him a dead woman with matted hair moans and stretches her gnarled hands toward him. She is missing her legs at the hips, and as Peter walks on she drags herself along the ground.

Peter rubs his hands through his close cropped dark hair, massaging away a growing headache. There is a splash of grey around his temples and it has gotten increasingly worse these past few days. The wall has kept them safe from everything but themselves, and as he does his rounds he begins to think seriously that he will need to figure out a way to get people working towards a more permanent solution.

“Are you OK, son?” he asks a young man. His voice is harsh and used to command. His years in the Marines gave him a lot of survival skills he has put into great effect recently.

The young man, little more than a boy, startles. He is carrying a 22 awkwardly. He has obviously never fired a rifle. “Yes sir,” the boy says, a little too excitedly and pats the stock of his rifle.

The boy is wearing a black hoodie and loose jeans. His hoodie has several extra layers of padding haphazardly sewn on. To protect from the bites. One of their nurses had thought of the idea when they learned that the disease was communicable through bites. So they tried to reinforce wherever they could.

“Anything interesting going on out there?” Peter asks.

“No sir. Quiet night,” the young man replies.

The sentries were Peter’s idea. He knew that once the dead started coming in force they would need people on the walls. It hadn’t been too bad yet. Most of the bodies were taken care of or still trapped south of town. But of course all it takes is one incident, Peter thinks bitterly.

“Well let’s hope it stays that way,” he nods at him. “Carry on,” he says and turns away walking up Miles Avenue. It is a tree lined boulevard and it would be beautiful except that most of the houses have been boarded up. Once they got the wall in place they boarded up the houses just in case there was an outbreak. These houses would serve as fall back points.

Peter wanted everything as easy to defend as possible. Another military tip, always leave yourself a backup plan. Because when things went SNAFU, and they always do, you want a way out. He knows it is mostly for his own ease of mind. If things get bad enough that they get through the walls then the houses are useless anyway. But he needs to keep people busy.

He walks the short stretch in silence. Alone. The sound of people talking drifts over to him as he approaches Hardin High School. It has become a sort of base of operations and it is used to house the weapons and most of the salvaged food.

The school has been heavily fortified. The whole place is boarded up and there is barbwire covering access to the entrances. The doors have been reinforced with plywood and cars are packed end to end allowing just a narrow corridor for anyone that is trying to come in. It would be an easy kill zone if things come to it. 

As he approaches a couple young men, also wearing black hoodies and jeans stand up quickly and snap a smart salute.

“As you were,” he says, walking past them into the school. The halls are lit with power from generators running on gasoline. He has a strict lights out policy at 9. They don’t have the fuel to go on forever and he knows they will need to come up with another solution but there are so many problems right now that he is just trying to address them one at a time.

He sighs as he sees how rough the place has become. There are posters proclaiming the new laws of the town. He doesn’t take the time to read them. He was the one who came up with them when they had nominated him the de facto leader.

That was a couple weeks ago, when the survivors banded together.

His wife had been one of the early ones affected. His head suddenly feels light and he stumbles bracing his hand against a locker door with a low thud. The memories rush back to him in a series of violent flashes.

He had been late coming home that afternoon. He was an on call driver and had a last minute job. On his way home he stopped by the store to grab his wife a few things from the store. They talked only a few hours before and she was fine. There was no hint that anything could be wrong.

On the way home he listened to the first reports on the radio. They were talking about judgement day and all sorts of heinous things. He shut off the radio with a twist of the nob. He never cared much for the fear mongering in the media.

That was when John called.

When he got home he noticed that the front door was open. That was so unlike her. She never left anything undone. It was a compulsive thing about her that he always found so cute. How she needed everything to be perfect. And he would so often go out of his way to move things just enough. It was a sort of game they had.

He walked into the door and called her name. When she didn’t respond he kept on until he got to the kitchen. He stopped in horror and the groceries spilled from his hands. She was lying in a pool of blood. Her normally beautiful hair was matted and sticky. Her neck lay at an odd angle, like she had broken it against the counter.

And then, the worst of it all, his son was curled up in the corner crying. His face was buried in his hands and he sobbed uncontrollably.

“It was me, dad,” his son said through tear choked breaths.

Peter rushed over and grabbed him, anger overruling his judgement. He pulled him from the ground as if he didn’t weigh anything. He was an eleven year old boy who had just hit his growth spurt but rage fueled Peter’s strength.

“What happened to your mother!” he screamed into the boy’s face. His checks were puffy and red from crying.

“It was me, dad.” The boy stammered out as he sobbed. Peter slammed him into the wall then his eyes wide with rage. “I don’t know what happened. Tt all happened so fast.” He was crying so hard that he could barely speak.

He tried to call 911 but the line was busy so Peter rushed her to the ER. There were already dozens of people crowding the small place. Too many people.

It wasn’t till later when she came back, when she had taken a bite out of their son, when Peter had to finish the corpse that his wife became and then wait with his son in the emergency room until the sickness took hold and he changed too, that Peter realized what his brother had said on the phone was happening everywhere. The world really was going to hell.

“Are you ok sir?” a soft voice says and his eyes clear for a moment. Ahead of him is an elderly woman who was one of the teachers at the school. Her grey cardigan is wrapped tight around her thin frame.

“Yes… I” Peter begins, “I just had a bad memory all of a sudden,” he says, “I just need some water, I have been having headaches.” He shakes off her offer to help him. “I will be ok, just head on to the meeting.”

With that he turns and walks down the hallway towards the gymnasium that has been turned into a meeting center and town hall.

He is supposed to hold a meeting soon to discuss town policies in the wake of the zombies they found locked in New Life Church. Apparently some of those crazy religious folks had gotten themselves locked in there when the change happened and then the zombies didn’t know how to get out. So when his people had gone looking for anything useful they were attacked by a dozen of the dead.

He lost a good man in that exchange and he was damned if it would happen again. He closes his fists tightly and steels himself for the inevitable confrontation as he walks into the room. Most of the survivors showed up already, at least a hundred, so he just walks up to the impromptu podium and clears his throat loudly.

Conversation around the room comes to a halt as he eyes everyone, his head still throbbing with the memory of his wife.

“Good evening.” He begins gripping the podium to keep himself stable.

2

Wellington, Colorado

Daniel slows the car to a halt in front of a decrepit Days Inn. A layer of ash covers the road, sending puffs of black clouds behind them. There must have been an uncontrolled fire here. Dozens of buildings are little more than burned husks and blackened trees spike the air, rattling in the wind like bones.

He looks around and waits for any dead to stand up. They still have almost a quarter tank of gas left but the driving has been excruciatingly slow, stopping to force wrecks out of the way, constantly aware that there might be undead anywhere. It was the worst around towns and cities but he knows that they could be anywhere.

Getting past Loveland and Fort Collins had taken a few days but they had worked through it and made it this far. He sighs heavily as they wait a few more moments. The area seems clear but he doesn’t want to rush it. It had taken days to get this far and they were close to empty and all of them were starving. They hadn’t gotten enough food in weeks.

The first night on the road had been terrifying. But Daniel split them up into shifts so they were able to watch each other’s back and he was glad that they had developed a sort of routine for checking new sites. Isaiah and he would walk around a bit just to make sure there was nothing in hiding. Then the girls would come out, Chloe always clinging to her mother. And they would look for anything useful. It was crude but effective so far.

He knows that it is better for them to take their time. Play it safe. Rather than to try to rush north, rushing means they aren’t thinking, and not thinking will get them killed. If they learned anything from their trek through Denver it was that not paying attention gets you killed. It is that simple. And so he promised himself that he wouldn’t let that happen again.

“I think it’s safe,” Isaiah says from the back seat. He grips the axe handle and opens the door, hopping out lightly. “You ladies wait here we will check it out first.”

Routines will keep us alive thinks Daniel as he steps out of the Hummer and onto the ground. Glass crunches under foot as he walks across the parking lot. The burned out wreck of a police car is wrapped around a light pole. The dead sign of the Days Inn hangs mutely. They decided to stop here and see if they could find some food and let Isaiah try to siphon some gas and fill up both of their containers.

“Looks alright?” Daniels asks Isaiah who nods and goes into the back. He flips open the trunk and pulls out the cans.

“I’m going to see if I can’t find some gas then. Holler if you see anything,” Isaiah says.

“Ok, I’m going to check the kitchen. Maybe they will have something useful,” Daniel says. His stomach twists with hunger. Food has been a constant problem. It seems that wherever there was food there were people. And then when those people died, they came back and that made every source of food a dangerous one.

This might be just as bad so he grabs the other axe and the flashlight. His sweaters forearms and his legs are still wrapped with duct tape, and his clothes are stiff with wear, but finding new clothes hasn’t been high on the priority list.

“Hey I’m just going to find the kitchen and see if I can’t get us some food ok?” he says to Valentine and Sasha who are sitting with Chloe.

“Ok.” Valentine nods.

“And maybe I’ll be able to find some coloring books or something for you Chloe,” he adds and she gives him a small smile. Daniel knows it’s not much but the little girl has been through so much. He wants to do what he can.

Thankfully the parking lot is mostly empty. There are a few stranded vehicles but nothing has moved since they pulled up and he figures anything in there would have come at them already.

Daniel jogs to the front door. It is a double sided glass door and both of them are blown out. The glass crunches under his feet as he steps through and into the darkness of the hotel. He flips on the flashlight and pans it around.

The lobby is a mess, plants overturned and the awful hotel carpet stained with blood in too many places for his comfort.

He breathes deeply and walks in further slowly scanning the light back and forth. The complimentary breakfast room is adjacent to the entryway. He shines the light into the empty room and sees tables overturned. A smashed coffee urn and there are chairs thrown haphazardly around.

The whole place is a disaster.

He sets off in the direction stepping around the detritus and trying to move quietly.

Daniel pushes open a swinging metal door and finds himself in the kitchen area. The hotel is old, and already looted. The gas stoves look ancient and there is a fridge, dented and scarred from years of use. A thick layer of dust coats everything.

It’s better than nothing, he says to himself and walks past a wall of hanging cooking instruments. He opens the fridge and immediately regrets his decision. The sickly sweet smell of decay almost overpowers him. He lets the door fall shut and steps back coughing. The power has been off for a while.

A slight moaning echoes to him from the back room when his coughing subsides. There is another metal door that has a table pushed in front of it. The sound of moaning comes from that back room as well as the scrapping of fingers against the door.

If there is food, it will be in a dry storage area. And if there is a dry storage area then it must be back there.

He moves to the door slowly trying to avoid making any noise. He isn’t sure if the dead will be able to see him because of the flashlight but he is not going to risk it in the dark.

When he is close enough he puts his ear to the door. The moaning increases a little but it’s weak. It sounds like there is only one, or maybe two on the other side of the door and Daniel considers risking it. He knows they need the food and they are probably not going to find any unless they take risks. With a deep breath he steels himself before he puts his hands on the table.

The cold metal braces his skin and his heart races as he prepares to push it aside. With a shove he sends the heavy metal table scrapping across the floor. The sound is ungodly loud and he is terrified that he just made enough noise to draw more of them.

Now or never, he thinks as he steps aside letting the metal door swing out. A decaying middle aged woman steps through the door.  She is wearing a stained white apron, her jaw is visible through a torn cheek. The midsection of the apron has been ripped open and her intestines trail behind her body in ropy contrails. The thing reaches dead hands up and throws herself forward hungrily, her dead eyes locking onto Daniel.

Daniel expects this and sidesteps allowing the momentum of the creature to carry it into the wall of stoves right behind him. The woman slams into them bodily and struggles to recover. Daniel brings the axe down into the side of her head before she can move. The woman falls to the floor with a thud but squirms still. It was not enough to put her out but the axe is lodged in and Daniel loses his grip as the woman falls away.

“Oh shit” Daniel says backpedaling. The woman writhes on the floor trying to lunge at him. Daniel grabs a heavy cleaver hanging on the wall and spins around just as the late chef raises to its feet. Daniel steps forward putting all his weight behind the blow. The cleaver comes down square in the woman’s face. He can feel the cartilage and bone breaking and the snap of tendons and muscles as it cleaves through her face and lodges into the brain.

The woman falls with a heavy thud and stop moving.

Daniel’s heart is racing and his breath comes in quick gasps. He puts his foot on the crook of the woman’s neck and heaves the axe free before he steps over the body and into the dry room.

“Hey are you ok?” Isaiah calls from the entry way. His body framed in the shadows.

“Yeah, Yeah, it was just one of them. I’m alright though,” Daniel replies.

“Maybe we should talk about staying in groups. You know just to be safe,” Isaiah says, “We’re going to have to be doing this a lot before we make it all the way up there.”

“You’re right,” Daniel replies. He knows he should not have gone alone but the thought didn’t even occur to him. There is safety in numbers, but unfortunately it also means more people will be put at risk too.  “We will talk about it when we get back on the road OK man?” Daniel offers.

“Alright sounds good,” Isaiah says, “Be careful.” He turns and disappears back outside.

The back room is a mess. Boxes are broken everywhere. Food wasted uselessly on the floor and the shelving overturned.  There are scratch marks along the inside of the walls where the woman had been trying to find a way out.

Daniel scans the flashlight back and forth again hoping to get something out of all of this. At last his beam falls upon a few unbroken boxes and he gives a sigh of relief. It’s not much, a box of breakfast cereals, powdered creamer for the coffees, and sugars. At least it’s food. He stuffs it all into his back pack.

As he stands up the light catches a box labeled chocolates and he grins. It’s not coloring books, but hell, a couple hundred pillow chocolates is better than nothing. He grabs them too and walks back out to the group.

Valentine is leaning against the car. Sasha and Chloe are walking around a bit to stretch their legs as Isaiah loads the cans of gasoline back into the trunk.

“Found some good stuff,” Daniel calls out, smiling as he walks up.

“Are you ok?” Valentine asks as soon as he gets close. She is obviously afraid and Daniel berates himself mentally. He should have been more thoughtful

“Yeah I’m OK,” he reassures her, “I just ran into one of them. I took care of it. I think from now on we stay in a group whenever we have to leave the car. That way we always have someone to watch our back. It will make it easier for us to deal with anything we come across.”

“I was really worried when we heard that screech. What was that?” she asks.

“I had to move a metal table. Someone had blocked off a door but I needed to get back there and find us some food.”

“Wait so you knew that there was one of those things?” Isaiah asks, whistling between his teeth. “And you still went back there?”

“Yes,” Daniel says flatly. He realizes how dumb it sounds now. But in the moment all he could think of was getting them food. “We aren’t going to find anywhere without those things. But we still need to eat. I took a risk because I only heard one of them on the other side of the door,” He says, trying to defend himself.

Valentine crosses her arms over her chest and exhales.

“Look we need to eat,” Daniel says again.

“He’s right Valentine,” Isaiah backs him up. “It was dangerous and dumb, and no one goes out alone again, but we do need to eat and that was our best shot.”

“I know,” Valentine says still scowling. “I was just nervous. I don’t know what I would do if…” she lets the though trail off as she looks at Chloe. “Just be careful next time.”

“I will. I’m sorry,” Daniel says. All of their nerves are high and he should have thought before he just went for it. He can’t have them turning on each other. Not with everything else as bad as it is.

“But look,” he says, holding the bag out in front of him. “I found chocolate.” Chloe smiles a big beautiful smile and lets out a little yelp of joy. “An entire box of the stuff they put on pillows.”

Valentine grabs Daniel’s arm and gives it a squeeze.

“See it’s not all bad,” Sasha says.

“This isn’t going to be enough food though,” Isaiah says going through the bag and frowning at the cereal. “It’s something, but we are going to need more real soon”

“You’re right,” Daniel concedes, “It’s all there was. Maybe we should try houses somewhere? See if there is canned food or something that won’t have spoiled.”

“That’s probably going to be our best shot,” Isaiah says and Sasha nods.

A moan carries across the wind. Followed by more and slowly they start to feel the low thrum of thousands of dead voices all moaning. Apparently their coming wasn’t unnoticed and all those dead closed in on them.

“Well that settles it lets get a move on,” Isaiah says.

“Wait one last thing,” Daniel says, “Let’s check if the cop still has his gun or any ammo.” He points to the husk of a police car.

“Ok,” Isaiah says.

The cop is a dozen yards away under a copse of trees. The mangled body of a little boy is nearby. His arm is missing from the forearm down on his left hand. And his body is covered in filth.

They flip over the cop and see that he must have shot himself in the head. The back of his skull is missing. But the gun is lying next to him. The cop must have had to put the boy down. Then he took his own life.

Daniel checks the body as quickly as he can. The smell is horrendous and he has to force himself not to gag. It only takes a moment before he locates a spare clip. Isaiah checks the clip in the gun. Still a couple bullets left.

Isaiah smiles at him. “Sorry for this fella but this gun is going to be a life saver,” he says.

The sound of the moaning drifts closer and they jog back to the car. Daniel can just see the hordes starting to trickle out from behind houses. Just a few at first but he knows it will be hundreds if they wait any longer. They hop in the car and pull away, leaving plumes of ash in their wake.