Rise (30 page)

We didn’t wait long before they started coming into the gap in the gate. Once inside, by twos and threes they followed the slope of the ground down, until they were standing below us inside the fenced area behind the second gate.

Man, they were fucked up. Rot had set in a long time ago for most of them. Blackened puffy flesh was peeling off the bones in places, and some of them were leaking fluids. It was absolutely disgusting. Some were missing limbs, a few had only one eye, or no lower jawbone. Mostly they wore the shredded clothes they had died in, and only in a few cases was I able to tell gender at a glance.
And yet still they walked, and reached for us, and moaned and gasped.
Once we had about fifty, the people behind the wooden screens pushed the gates closed. One zombie got caught in the gate, trying to push its way in, and it fell over forward as it made it through. The others behind it pushed or pulled on the gate, but it was much stronger than they were. I didn’t fear it breaking.

Sam pointed to one undead I had just spotted myself. The man was much fresher than the rest. His blood was still red where it had stained his clothing, and he still looked almost normal. He had bite marks along his arms and neck, and was missing most of his fingers. He still wore a cowboy hat, a Crosby, Stills, and Nash t-shirt, and some decent shitkickers. God damn. He must have only died recently, and made his way here over the last few weeks. The poor bastard.

We dumped diesel fuel into the pit while the stinking rotted miasma drifted up to us. We sprayed the poor fucks down with it, and if one managed to climb atop his fellows long enough to grasp the edge of the pit, one of us pushed him or her back in with the spiked pole. Sam tossed in the flare.

The fire caught immediately, and within a few seconds the whole pit was engulfed in flames. We stood well back as the fire reached higher than our heads. The undead never made a sound, just kept trying to grab at us, until one by one they fell over, brains destroyed by the heat, and they became the truly dead. The fire burned long afterwards, and we tossed in fuel to keep it going. Eventually all that was left was skeletons and ashes.

For four days starting at dawn each day we lured fifty to sixty undead into the burning pit and incinerated them. On the last day there were only thirty. No more have come since then, either because they can’t find their way up the road to the prison, or there are no more in the area. I’m betting on the first choice, so I am sure we only have a few days at most before more arrive. The smoke must have been visible for miles and miles. But we've been using the time we have to move supplies from the rest of the facility inside the fence. We emptied out the cars first, and drained as many tanks as we could. We went through the houses and gathered food and clothing, blankets and boots, and then we went to the traps and reset as many as we could. That was nasty, because a few of them had only trapped the undead, not killed them. We used the spears to finish the lingering ones off.

Yesterday, I saw something odd. We drove a few of the working cars to the gas station about 5 km from here, raided it for everything we could carry, and drove back. On the way there we had passed a single zombie standing in a field. It hadn’t turned to look at us as we drove by; rather it had stood there gazing at the hills. We ignored it and drove past. It was still there on the way back. It hadn’t moved at all. I was curious, so I told Eric to stop. The others went ahead, but Eric and Kim and I got out of the Civic and walked towards the single standing zombie. There were no others in sight, and all three of us were armed, so we didn’t feel any danger. Darren stayed with the car, just in case we needed a quick getaway.

We walked slowly towards the corpse. It was just standing there. We approached from the rear, spread out in a line, all of us with guns aimed. At ten yards we stopped. I slowly circled around towards the front, and as I moved into its field of view it didn’t respond. Normally, no matter how still they are, once they see you they start acting like predators. I still don’t know why that is. This one just stared.

It was a male, and possibly an original. Its flesh hung in sagging, oozing black sacks off its limbs. It was dressed in the tattered remnants of a business suit, with one sleeve missing entirely. Bite marks were barely visible along that arm. Its eyes were intact, though. It stood, staring at the distance, unresponsive to obvious prey. We all found this quite odd, and I asked Eric what he thought. The walking corpse didn’t even react to my voice. None of us had any idea what to make of it, whether or not it was a natural progress of whatever caused it to walk in the first place, or something else.

We left it there and returned to the prison, but I was still very curious. It made me think about a lot of what I had seen in the last months. We still don’t know why they walk. We still don’t know how they started to spread. We know of one sure way for them to increase their numbers, the bite, but beyond that we have no clue how or why some people rise and some don’t. Maybe some scientists somewhere are looking into it, I hope. But maybe not. Maybe there aren’t any scientists left.

This morning, Kim and Darren and Sam and I got into the Civic and drove back out to have another look at the Standing Zombie. Sam wanted to come to see this anomaly, so we drove back to where we found it. It was still there, unmoving, its posture the same as yesterday. Light snow had started to fall, and it was covered in an unmelting frosting of white flakes. We walked slowly towards it, Kim staying with the car this time so Darren could come to see it.

It stood there, it didn’t react to noise, our presence, or even to a rock that we lobbed at it, hitting it in the chest. Sam wondered if it was frozen, so I threw another larger rock at it, hitting it in the shoulder. It moved then, only slightly moving its right leg to avoid falling. That was all. So, it wasn’t frozen solid. It had balance, but it wasn’t trying to walk around, or eat us. We were all baffled. We left it there, and went back to the car. I sat in the warm car and wondered. Is this a sign of things to come? Will they soon all be reaching this point? Can we reclaim the planet from them within a few years now?

We drove back to the prison in the falling snow, and I made plans. We almost have the school bus finished. Two days at most. Then we can go back to Cold Lake. I can see Jess again. Megan and Michael. I have been away far too long, and they might even think I am dead…

It’s colder now, and the snowfall is heavier. I can see my breath in the air even inside. I’ll be moving down the hall now to the common room, where the stove is heating dinner, and the people have gathered for another meal and to talk and plan. We’re having roast chicken and pasta tonight.

Snow fell through the night, covering everything in a frigid layer of white flakes. The sentries reported this morning that no new walking dead had appeared overnight, so it’s still clear out in front of the gates. It’s peaceful, and we took advantage of this to dress warmly and take the few children here outside to play. I got into a snowball fight with several others, and the kids made a snowman. A small one, and it didn’t hold together well, but it was very good for everyone’s morale. The thought of not having to hide inside, even for a little while, was wonderful. What finally drove us back in was the cold. Frozen ears and noses finally prevailed, so we retired inside for some hot chocolate and felt normal again for the first time in ages.

On a more sober note, I want to go look at ‘Stan’ again. I am calling the standing immobile zombie ‘Stan’, and it’s caught on. Most of the people here think it must be a sign of the end of the undead. If one is doing this, maybe eventually they all will. I just don’t know. I hope they all just fall over dead one day, but I doubt that will happen. At any rate, Sam and I are going to go out later and carefully inspect Stan for any changes. When we get back to Cold Lake I want to ask the scientists there if this has been reported anywhere else. I’ve begun a secondary journal just for Stan, so I can record everything about him. If he’s still immobile when we go to leave, I’ll destroy him, just to be safe. Plus I feel a certain guilt in leaving someone who used to be alive in this state.

Darren and Kim and I have been playing poker at night recently. We found a stack of chips and cards in the warden’s house, and brought them back here. Kim’s a natural player, but Darren has too much showing on his face. I beat him every time. Eric says he doesn’t play card games. So far though, Darren owes me about twelve grand, and Kim owes me five. How exactly I’ll collect I have no idea. It’s not like any banks are open.

We are ready to go. We’ve loaded up the bus and a few cars with all the perishables (pre-cooked so we can eat them cold if need be), as many supplies and weapons as we can get our hands on, and many extra blankets to deal with the chill. It’s about -15 outside. I looked at the map and realised that Stettler is about 100 km north of us here on the #56 Highway. The plan then is to take the 56 north, skirt around Stettler and get us onto the path we took back to Cold Lake back in the fall before we went to Calgary. We know the route, and the risks, and should be able to find our way easily. We set out tomorrow morning, with myself and Darren in the Civic, Eric and Kim in the Nissan Pathfinder we have fixed up and fuelled, and Sam driving the bus with everyone else in it. We are going to take a few days to get to Cold Lake, because the days are short and we don’t want to travel at night.

Yesterday Sam and Darren and I went out to see Stan again. He was still there. Snow had fallen on him, and he looked rather comical for a rotten animated corpse with cannibalistic tendencies. Again we approached slowly, and I was struck by the stillness of the area. Our breath was a white fog in the air, and the snow was undisturbed except for our footprints. Stan still hadn’t moved. He was still staring at the distance, and when I tossed a rock at him he again corrected his balance, but that was the only reaction. I got a digital camera from the car and took several pictures of him, from various angles. The whole time Darren had his pistol trained on Stan, in case he suddenly decided I was dinner and started acting like a regular zombie again. He didn’t react at all. After taking about fifteen or sixteen pictures, I put the camera away. I planned to upload them to the computer later, once we got away from here. Again we went back to the car, got out a thermos of hot coffee, and shared some between the three of us. It was refreshing. Standing there in the snow drinking hot coffee reminded me of times well before this shit started. Ski vacations, camping in the Rockies in winter, shit like that. The occasional whiff of decay was more than enough to ruin that illusion, though.

I took my notebook, walked back to Stan, and walked around him, making notes. His stance, condition of his clothing, obvious wounds, and whatever else about him caught my attention. He had no breath. Where I was breathing a fog cloud out with every breath, there was nothing from Stan. I was pondering what that might mean about his internal temperature when I noticed something else. He was looking at me!

This in itself made me jump back and draw my Browning. I had been about four paces from him. Stupid! Never
ever
get that close!

Darren called to me, asking if I was alright. I told him I was fine, but that Stan had just started looking at me directly. Darren and Sam walked over, and when they entered Stan’s field of vision he started tracking them too. Just the eyes though, nothing else moved. It was quite unsettling. We moved around a bit, walking back and forth, and he watched us as much as he was able to. He never once turned his head or body. We tried this for fifteen minutes, and all he did was follow us with his eyes.

Sam suggested that maybe Stan had fallen victim to the undead equivalent of a stroke. That maybe his nerves had failed, finally decomposing to the point where he couldn’t move his limbs. I countered that, though by pointing out the rocks I had bounced off Stan earlier. He’d moved then, but only to recover his balance. So what was is then? Is his brain even more damaged than that of a ‘normal’ zombie? Does he have nerve damage from the rot? Was it magic fairy dust that has immobilized him? We just don’t know. We debated this for half an hour, tossing about many ideas, ranging from why Stan couldn’t move to why the fucking undead were walking around
at all
, something we still really don’t understand. Darren was just in the middle of a rant about his thoughts that the US government had a big secret lab where they’d created the original zombies, and then deliberately turned them loose in Africa to see what would happen, when Stan groaned.

Instantly, three pistols were out and aimed. Darren and I spread out, covering Stan from the sides with Sam in the middle. Stan was watching Sam, I thought. His groan went on and on. No white fog of living breath, I noticed. Finally, he rasped out the last air in his dead lungs, and fell face first onto the snow. My immediate thought was,
maybe he got tired of listening to us argue.

We approached with extreme caution. He was finally dead, though. Not undead, just dead. No remote hint of anything in his eyes, just the putrid decay and slow freezing of dead tissues. I put a bullet into his brainpan to be absolutely sure. We drove back in silence, not sure what to make of this.