Rise (28 page)

When I came to there was smoke in the air, and I coughed, then threw up. I was still in my seat, there was a gaping opening in the aircraft’s hull to my left that arched up overhead. The seat ahead of me was missing, and I couldn’t see anything for the smoke. I gasped in some smoke-filled air, and tried to get free of my seat belt. The floor was at an angle, and I could hear someone moaning in the wreckage. Darren had been to my right, and I turned that way to look for him once I had the seatbelt undone. A gust of wind blew the smoke away momentarily, and I saw Darren struggling with his belt as well. He looked dazed, there was a big swelling bruise on his face, and he was bleeding from his nose, which I suspected was broken. I struggled over a seat that was now in the aisle, and grabbed Darren’s arm, realising then that I couldn’t feel my left arm very well. It was numb from the elbow down, and when I looked there was a small sliver of metal sticking out of it. I pulled it out and it turned out to be about 5 centimeters long. I didn’t feel any pain, but it started bleeding right away, so I clamped my hand on it to stop the flow.

Darren got free, and we went looking for the others. We found Todd slumped in his chair with a chunk of the hull in his chest. I checked for vitals, but he was gone. Damnit. I sent Darren towards the back, and I moved forwards. He called up to me that he’d found Laura, and she was unconscious. In the next seat forward I found Kim, looking dazed, but awake and not panicking. She had a burn on her face from something, but I don’t know what, there was nothing on fire nearby. I asked her if she was okay, and she said yes, but winced when she spoke. I helped her unbuckle, and she reached for her sword and gun. I moved toward the pilot’s cabin, and was unable to open the door. It was jammed on something, and was hot to the touch. I could hear crackling and sizzling through the door, and I knew this must be the source of the fire and smoke.

Getting Kim standing with me, we moved back towards Darren. He was unhooking Laura from her seat with the help of Eric, who looked less beat up than the rest of us. I didn’t see Jim anywhere, and when I asked, Eric pointed to the spot on the floor where Jim’s seat had been. It was right by the open gash in the hull, and I could see the ripped steel where his chair had been torn away. He was probably outside somewhere behind us on the highway.

The thought of outside reminded me it was cold. I grabbed my parka and motioned for everyone else to do the same. I then checked my weapon, grabbed my bag with the laptop in it, and began to gather what supplies I could. I found two C7A1’s, a shotgun, our pistols, and found our emergency bags, which I slung on my shoulder. I found my radio, and tried to raise Calgary with it, but there was no response.

Laura had been removed from her seat by now, but she was still out cold. I left her to Eric and Darren, and Kim and I took a look out through the gap in the hull. I remembered passing houses just before we crashed, so we were near a town. And that meant the walking dead.
God damn it!
I did not want to deal with this shit! Outside it was cold, and my breath was visible in the air. I looked in all directions and saw that we had slid off the highway and collided with two trucks and a car. Wreckage was spread out over a large area. Flames were coming from the cockpit, and any hope of the pilots’ survival instantly vanished. It was only a matter of minutes before the gas leaking from the wings caught fire, so I leaned back in and told Darren and Eric to get Laura out of there. Kim walked over to the tail section, and said she could see undead coming, fifteen or so, but spread out and a ways off yet.

We hauled Laura out as gently as we could. She had a big swelling on the left side of her head above her eye, and was bleeding from a deep cut on her shoulder, but it wasn’t gushing so we put a bandage on it as quickly as we could and looked around for something to carry her with. We ended up with a door off the wrecked car. Her feet hung off the end, but she was movable.

Kim fired two shots, and I turned to check on that situation. She had shot a zombie that was about 25 feet away from the tail. I could see a lot more coming across fields, and from the nearby town. The road to the town was bare of everything but bits of plane and walking corpses, about twenty now. We had to get out of here right away. If we stayed near the plane we’d die, either when it blew up, or when several dozen hungry dead things descended upon us in a horde. Darren pointed to a car nearby that hadn’t been hit in the collision, and ran over to check it out. He said there were keys in it, but it was locked up. I yelled back at him to smash the passenger window and try it. He used the butt of the shotgun to smash the glass, and climbed in. A few tense moments later the car reluctantly sputtered to life, and we all carried Laura on the makeshift litter towards it. We arrived in time to see three undead attempting to navigate the debris behind the tail, and we all piled into the Honda Civic (a hybrid, I noticed) and lay Laura across Eric and Kim in the back seat. I threw the bags into the back, and climbed in the passenger seat. As we backed up along the highway I saw two of the undead climb into the plane, and I remembered that Todd’s body was in there. They were going to feed. Fuck.

We were in a car with a quarter tank of gas, on a road somewhere in southern Alberta, with a few weapons, limited food, and five injured people. We had no idea if help was coming, our gear was buried in the storage area of the plane (which was on fire), and zombies had arrived looking for a BBQ. Just swell. We drove, hoping to see a highway sign so we could figure out where we were.

About ten minutes later Laura began having seizures in the back seat. We had to pull over to treat her, but by the time we stopped she had settled back down. Her breathing was shaky and shallow, so Eric took her pulse, but could barely find it. We talked about what to do, argued about it actually, all of us yelling and shouting on the side of the road. Eric held onto Laura the whole time in case she started seizing again, and within ten minutes she stopped breathing. There was nothing we could do for her. We had no medical supplies but the few things in our emergency bags, and nowhere to take her for treatment. When she stopped breathing we all just sat down with her, and everyone was quiet for a while.

Eventually, the reality of the situation surfaced again. We had to get moving. I stood, letting go of Laura’s hand, and took a few deep breaths. As I looked around I could see the smoke rising from the plane in the distance, a lot more now. The wing tanks must have caught fire. Hopefully the zombies I had seen going to take a bite out of Todd were roasted now. Hopefully…

God, what a fucked up world.

We’re near Carbon, a small town near the badlands. We found a highway sign last night right before we came into the yard of the house we are in. It’s an empty two story farmhouse. There were no undead inside, and we’ve been careful to hide the car in the barn. Laura’s body we put out there as well, under a tarp. When we leave we’ll set a pyre. All of us wanted to be cremated if we died.

We are staying on the top floor of the house, have barricaded the lower floor as well as possible, and have moved all the essentials we could find upstairs. It’s cold in here, so we moved blankets, food, what water we could coax out of the well pump, and the few things we had up here this afternoon. We are all huddled together for warmth, everyone is sore or has a headache, and we are all sporting bandages. My arm hurts like hell where the steel sliver went in, but I got the feeling back a few hours later.

We got lucky and found some gas in a truck out back. We couldn’t start the truck, so we siphoned into milk jugs and poured what we could into the Civic. We spilled a fair bit of it, but ended up with nearly a tank full.

I interrupted Kim and Darren talking earlier. They were talking about Laura and Todd and Jim, and if we’d make it back to Cold Lake okay. I walked in at that point and told them yes, we would. It’s important now to keep a positive attitude. We have to be sure of it. If we slip and get depressed or fatalistic, we might as well kill ourselves and save the undead the effort.

At dawn this morning we held a brief funeral service for Laura, as well as the others, even if we had no bodies to cremate. We stacked some very dry lumber and logs in the field behind the barn, and laid Laura on top. We soaked the wood with a little kerosene, and I threw a flare into the pile once we finished saying our words. We were brief, but it was touching. As soon as we were done we all got into the Civic and set out. The smoke from the fire should draw the undead in the region, covering our escape to less infested areas. I watched for a moment as the flames leapt up, catching easily in the dry wood. We had wrapped her in a bed sheet, and it was just starting to catch when I walked to the Civic. I was the last one in, so I took the passenger seat while Eric drove. Kim and Darren were in back with the few supplies we salvaged. We drove east on the road that ran by the farm, passing more houses, stands of trees, overgrown lawns and fields, and the occasional walking corpse who moaned and gaped when they saw us, and lurched our way in a facsimile of life.

We decided last night that going back to Calgary is our best bet. There is too much unknown country between us and Cold Lake to make the attempt. We haven’t been able to contact anyone on the short-range radios, and we haven’t seen any sign of a rescue attempt. They probably thought we were all dead. I hope that the pilots managed to get a distress call off before we crashed, but if they didn’t I wouldn’t be surprised.

Anyhow, our plan is to head east until we find Route 575, then turn southeast along it until we enter the badlands and find the town of Drumheller. From there, it’s out on the 56 until we reach the Trans-Canada Highway, and we’ll take that west back into Calgary. That last part worries us all. The population of the undead in that region will be much higher, and already this car is making ominous sounds in its innards. I worry that we’ll be stranded on foot someplace. Bicycles would be a good idea if we can find four in decent shape. Quicker than walking, and nearly silent. We’ll keep that option open if we need to.

We drove down the slope into the badlands with the lights off and the heat cranked. It was probably -15 this morning when we woke up. Last night we parked on a grassy overlook and sat up watching the stars shine like diamonds. Nowhere around us were there the lights of houses, planes passing overhead, nor the near ever-present sounds of cars passing on the highways that we would have heard or seen this same time a year ago. Human civilization in this world has ground to a halt. Truly, this is a silent planet now. It never ceases to amaze me just how fragile the society we had built really was. I remember hearing once, back in the days when I was an investment banker, that North American culture was three missed meals away from anarchy. It wasn’t quite that way, really. It was more like one meal, and it wasn’t a living person eating either.

So we drove into Drumheller just about dawn. The air was crisp and chilly, and we approached from the west. This whole area made its money off the tourist trade, and evidence of that was all along the road once we hit the badlands. Many famous archaeological sites were in the area, including the world famous Royal Tyrell Dinosaur Museum, which I had been to exactly once, the year it opened. We passed the turnoff for it, and I wondered how it looked now. That led to unpleasant images in my head, so to distract myself I turned on the car radio. Static. I opened the glove box to see if there were any CD’s, and was rewarded with three. The first was Iron Maiden’s
Number of the Beast
, which Eric demanded we play instantly, so I slid it in. The next two were Danzig’s
Lucifuge
and, wonder of wonders, Gemalte Leiche’s
Broken Faith
. I wondered if Amanda had heard this one, and if she was safe and secure up in Athabasca. I slipped the compact disk into my bag to give to her, if we made it back.

Drumheller was as silent as a grave. Nothing moved, nothing walked, and nothing tried to eat us. It was like those towns in central BC that I passed so long ago, desolate and still. I had the same creeped out feeling again, so I suggested we pass through there as quickly as possible. Strange, but even with no walking dead about I still felt a threat. It grew worse as we passed houses and stores, abandoned trucks and cars, and the bones of the dead lying on the sidewalks or in the yards, wherever they had been when they died. Some had clearly been torn apart, since the bones were scattered. It could have been the work of scavengers after the kills were made, but I suspected it was undead action. We came to a park, and passed a looming water tower that looked ready to fall. An 18-wheeler had collided with one of the support pillars, knocking it into a U-shape. After that we passed a section of burned buildings. There were six of them, an apartment block, some stores, and a single house on the far side. All looked gutted, and I imagine the unchecked fire had swept through them in a matter of hours.

We crossed through the silent town and found our road, the barely legible signs pointing us to the road that led to Calgary. As we drove along, we speculated on where the undead might have gone. None of us had any real ideas, except Darren, who commented that perhaps the zombies had simply lost interest in anything here and wandered away.

Minutes later we drove up out of the valley and towards the prairie on a long winding road. Partway up was the turnoff towards the Drumheller Federal Penitentiary. Someone had painted large wooden signs and put them next to the turnoff for the prison. They read, in huge black letters on the white signs, “Please help! Survivors inside!” and “Approach carefully! There are traps.” We stopped on the road just before the turnoff. Could there still be survivors here? Would they offer us assistance? We took the turnoff, but made really sure to advance slowly down the dusty road.