Rise (31 page)

A while back I noted that no plan survives contact with the enemy. If I could roll my eyes on here I would.

Last Wednesday, the 8th of December, we left the prison. We locked up the facility, leaving the keys in the doors so if any survivors came along and found the place, they could get in safely. The main gate we closed and tied loosely with a rope. It should be sufficient to keep any stray undead out, but one pull by a live human and it would open right away. The traps we disarmed.

I felt hopeful as I led the way out onto the road. With the bus following us, and the Pathfinder following that, we drove out and turned towards Drumheller. We had full loads of fuel, lots of warm clothes, and enough food and water to last us all a week. We drove down the hill into the town, and retraced our path through. We passed the water tower, a children’s park, and various cars and trucks. There were a few dozen zombies in sight as we drove through, but none were close enough to pose a threat. We wove the bus through the wrecks, disturbing the trash and plants growing up through the pavement cracks, running over a few bones and bodies as we went, though we went around as many of those as possible. Darren started digging in the various packs and things, looking for something.

I asked him what he was looking for, and he told me “a CD” and that the car had a kick ass system in it. I was surprised to hear that, and then remembered that I had the CD I had found for Amanda in my bag. He dug around a bit, then produced Gemalte Leiche’s
Broken Faith
and loaded it in. Symphonic violin strains began, and I was just thinking that this wasn’t so bad when the gargling and howling began. This was followed by the fastest and most insanely heavy guitar shredding I have ever heard. Then drums! And over all this the violins still wailed. It sounded like the soundtrack to the end of the world. Darren and I looked at each other in horror. I shouted at him over the cacophony and said, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” He nodded in agreement, reached for the knob, and turned it up.

Later that day, after driving through the badlands, passing many walking corpses, and climbing up onto the surrounding prairies, we turned north on the #56. It was smooth going for almost an hour. We were going at about 60 kph, and the road was straight and clear. There were cars, but they were apart from each other and easy to travel around. We did see a number of undead trapped either in cars, or wandering the overgrown fields and roads. Once we saw a flock of very stupid geese fly overhead. They were heading sort of southeast. I thought about stopping and shooting one for dinner, but I doubted I could hit one by the time we pulled over and got out.

Ahead of us at the intersection of the #56 and the #589 we ran into a problem. The #589 ran into the highway at a T intersection here, leading away to the east. There were a few farms about, but my attention was on the traffic accident at the intersection. We pulled over about half a kilometer from the damage, and I got out the binoculars to have a look. I stepped out into the cold air and had a look, then passed Darren the binoculars and waved for Eric and Kim to come forward. The road was blocked heading north. A Greyhound bus had smashed into a large tractor here, and several cars were mangled in the wreckage as well. Even worse, there was a fair-sized crowd of the walking dead lurching about the area. I counted twenty. Probably accident victims, farmers from nearby, and random wandering zombies. In any case, there were too many to safely deal with except at a distance, so we got out the rifles, and talked about what to do. Sam came forward from the bus, and we showed him the problem.

Within ten minutes we had decided to drive forward until we had their attention, then back away as they advanced. We’d shoot them as they came toward us, lining up snipers for good headshots. We’d have to clear the road of the bodies, but it was a good plan. Eric and Darren would do the shooting. Kim and I would watch their backs. Some of the others from the prison would watch around as well, since the more eyes we had looking out the better.

Kim and I got into the Civic while the other two set up a sniping spot across the hood of the Pathfinder. We drove forward, and when we got close enough that they started noticing us I honked the horn a few times.
That
got the attention of all the dead bastards, and they started enthusiastically following us as we backed down the road. I turned and drove slowly to the position Eric and Darren had set up, and pulled off to the side to be away from the field of fire. We got out just as Eric fired the first shot. We grabbed our guns and stood sentry while they fired. The cordite smell that has become so familiar to me drifted to us, and I watched behind and to the sides. I didn’t pay much attention to the road ahead, that was their problem. When the shooting finally stopped I turned and saw twenty corpses in various poses, lying on the pavement. One was still wriggling a bit, but that ended fast. Eric put another bullet into its head, and it was still. They were good shooters. The closest corpse was twenty yards away.

We spent the next thirty minutes dragging the bodies from the road. We piled them up in a ditch. There was talk of burning them, but I was worried about fuel. We’d need it, so I didn’t want it wasted on these former undead. We threw the gloves we’d used on top of the pile after we hauled the last one down. They were filthy and gore-encrusted, and we all washed our hands and faces with soapy water.

Continuing on, we found there was no way to get through to the north. The bus had created such a mess that the only clear path was to the east. We took a moment to check the inside of the bus, but found nothing useful. The gas tank had long ago drained out onto the ground, and what food we found was long spoiled.

So we turned east on the #589, and drove another dozen kilometers until we were just south of Gough Lake. The land was empty here, so we stopped and had lunch. Spirits were high, as the day was warming up. Birds could be seen on the lake north of us, and Eric spotted some deer through the binoculars. They seemed unconcerned that human civilization had collapsed into roving bands of survivors fleeing from cannibalistic corpses. They actually seemed pretty happy, completely at ease by the lake.

We drove on, eventually passing two small towns and turning north on the #855, best described now as a rude track overgrown with weeds, ice and rubble. Progress was slow, since we had to dodge far more cars here than I had thought we would. We could see another lake to the east, and the map said it was Sullivan Lake. We slowly wove our way north until we reached the town of Halkirk. It was on the road to Stettler, west of us, and we had been though here in the fall. It was a little more desolate now. Snow, ice, and the walking dead. We turned east again, on the road to Consort, which was about 100 km away. The snow on the road here was undisturbed except for the tracks of animals, and we made good time. By late afternoon we were just outside Throne, and had to slow down to steer around a wreck. I drove past in the Civic with the bus on our tail, and just as I passed a Suburban turned on its side, a zombie staggered out and made a grab for the car. It missed, but lurched right into the path of the bus. There was a sickening wet crunch we heard even in the Civic, and the zombie ceased to be a problem as it went under the front tire of the bus. We continued on, but after a minute the bus pulled over. This was right in the middle of the town of Throne, so something serious must be up. Concerned, we stopped and Darren took the wheel as I got out. I heard the hissing as I walked to the bus. The tire was going flat.
Damn.
A bone fragment must have punctured the tire as the zombie was crushed. Sam jumped out, looked at the tire, and swore like a sailor. There was no spare.

I heard a groaning sound, and looked around. We had stopped near a gas station with a shattered front window, and a pair of hungry looking undead were trying to climb through the missing pane to get to us. Across the street was a neighborhood, and I could see several walking dead coming down the streets towards us. Not too many, thank God, but enough to be a problem. I grabbed my shotgun, and walked towards the two making their way through the window of the gas station. I called to Eric to get the bus moving, whatever it took!
Darren backed the Civic up to near where I was standing, and I raised the shotgun up to my shoulder. I heard the bus start moving again. It wouldn’t get far, but it could get away from here. We’d have to find another tire or a new vehicle. The two undead approaching me were really badly decomposed. I saw bone, rotten black tissue, and torn clothing. Gender was simply beyond me, but one had longer hair, so it was either a female or a hippy. I didn’t care. I shot the closest one in the face, and it went down, missing most of its skull now. The other, the long haired one, was a little quicker than its companion, and stepped over a fallen gas hose. It came, arms outstretched, and I pulled the trigger again, a little low this time. The blast severed the head completely, and body and head rolled in different directions.

I retreated to the Civic, and Darren drove us out after the bus, which was slowly making its way through the town. It was a struggle to drive, apparently, since Sam drove it into the corner of a truck, took out a stop sign, and clipped a car as well. It was evident that the bus was fucked. I called Eric on the radio, and told him to look for a defendable structure. We were going to have to abandon the bus. He said there was a school ahead. We drove that way, and it looked pretty good. The doors to the school were open, and I imagined there would be undead inside. Still, better we get in there than be out here in the open with a town full of walking dead to deal with. The bus pulled up and people started getting out. I yelled to Eric and Kim to check the school out, and they headed inside. I told Sam to have everyone grab either a bag of food, a bag of water, or some other supplies. One bag only, and everyone takes something. Then inside, and into the first secure room they see. He nodded and started giving directions, and Darren and I stepped out towards the street to see what was going on. Fifteen or so undead were coming. I checked the shotgun, making sure it was fully loaded, and shot at the closest one I saw. Darren, taking careful aim, dropped the next closest two with very clean headshots. He’s a good shot, and I sometimes forget he’s only 16 still. I shot another one in the head, and turned to check on the others. They were gathering things still. Too slow! I shouted at them to hurry, and heard shooting from inside the school. Three shots, then one more. I turned around again, and ten feet from me was a huge, incredibly tall corpse, lurching along with great speed. He must have been 6’6”, and was probably a body builder in life. I got the shotgun up, and fired, hitting him in the chest. He went down, but then got up again. His ruined torso wasn’t bleeding, just a black ooze that looked like tar. I pumped another round in, and fired again, higher. This time the pellets tore a large chunk from his face, ruined an eye, and tore his left ear cleanly off. Nothing in his brain, though. Damnit! He charged, and I ducked low on his blind side, and lifted as he ran into me. He went over my back and hit the ground face first, and I pumped my last round into the shotgun and fired at the back of his head. His skull burst, splashing grey matter across the street, and I realised I was out. Too many more were too close, so I slung the shotgun rather than fumble for more ammo, and drew the Browning. I checked Darren, and there were a few dead at his feet. The other people were inside now, so I ran to Darren and grabbed his arm and started towards the school. Somehow an undead had managed to get between us and the school, and I was raising my arm to shoot it when Kim came outside, holding her broadsword. She stepped up, holding the sword like she knew exactly what she was doing, and swung at the zombie. It was facing us, so it didn’t see her. She took a good horizontal swing, and cut the top half of its head cleanly off. It flopped down, and that was that.

We ran past her, and she followed us inside. We barricaded the doors with chairs, filing cabinets and boxes, and retreated to the inner hallway as the undead arrived at the doors. I first reloaded the shotgun, then checked on everyone. There had been a few undead inside, but Eric and Kim had taken them out. We had some supplies, but not all. We were low on ammo, but if we could get to the cars we could get more. Water was a problem. So was the tire on the bus. Food we seemed to have plenty of.

So for the last three days we have been here, in the fortified school. A total of forty-one undead have come here, hoping for a meal. Tomorrow morning we are going to get out of here one way or another. We only waited this long to see how many there would be. No new ones have shown up since yesterday, so we feel confident that this is it. The people are scared, wondering if we have traded one prison for another, so tomorrow cannot come soon enough.

Three dead. That’s our count from our escape attempt. There is good news, but I’ll get to that.

We started the morning of the 12th with our tried-and-true diversion tactics of making a whole lot of noise at one end of the building and drawing the undead over there so we could get to the vehicles unimpaired. In the school music room we found drums, cymbals, and a few French horns. This was more than sufficient for an impromptu jam session, and we hauled the gear to the far end classroom. It was the end away from the town, and was formerly a science lab, by the look of it. A table of elements was posted on one wall, and various jars of preserved animal parts were on shelves. Broken beakers littered the floor, and an ominous blackened bloodstain was splashed along the wall closest the door.

We set up the instruments and went back to the other room, where everyone was gathered, and went over the plan another time. It never fails; someone will second guess the plan at some point and try to screw things up. They’ll mean well, but it’ll happen anyways. In this case it was Bernard, one of the former cons. A break-and-enter man from Montréal, he’d been doing five years, and was into his fourth when the dead rose. He was full of great ideas, and in fact he happily shared them with anyone who’d let him talk for a minute or more. The problem was, his great ideas had landed him in jail. Applying them to a survival situation when the threat of zombie attack was just outside the fucking door was impractical.