Rise (36 page)

My leg started to throb, but I didn’t say anything. The bandage got red with blood, slowly staining the clean white cotton. Still we walked. A little more than an hour later we paused, and I was grateful to lean against a fallen tree and sit for a minute. Jess checked the bandage, and seeing the blood all through it, replaced it. We sat in the quiet, listening to the wind, alert for sounds of pursuit or approaching undead, until I had a new bandage in place. When Jess removed the bandages I saw sutures in my leg wounds, and wondered when they had done them. I guess I might have blacked out for a few minutes after all.

All too soon we got up again, and staggered onwards. Okay, it was just me staggering, the others were fine. About fifteen minutes later we heard a car coming up the road behind us, a thumping rhythm loud even in the distance. It was really very quiet out here with no ambient noise other than wind and the odd bird singing, so the car was audible from a long way off. We fled off the road into the shrubbery and trees, and hid as best we could. Once I lay down I took out my rifle and checked it hastily, and aimed back up towards the road. The car came into sight while we lurked in ambush, waiting to see if they spotted our tracks. It was a rusty grey Impala with snow chains on the tires, and it blew smoke out the back end in a small stinking haze. Four people were visible inside, all apparently men, all apparently armed. They drove past us without stopping, and vanished down the road.

We spent the night of the 19th in the woods avoiding raiders. We gave up on the abandoned SUV after the first car went past us. Others followed. We struck out towards the west, across wooded hills, but with me limping along we made terrible progress. Dusk found us in a small valley with a creek, frozen and obviously being used as a game trail. Eric and Kim went out scouting the area, while Darren and Jess threw up a tent, and I rested my leg. The numbness was wearing off and it was starting to hurt again at this point, but I really didn’t want to say anything. The bandage was bloody again. Not as much as the last time, but apparently my walking around had kept it from clotting well.

Once a tent was set up, Jess checked my leg and changed the bandage again. Eric and Kim returned, telling us the area was clear of both undead and raiders. We opted for no fire. It would be a cold night, but we’d be safer. I volunteered for first watch, but they all politely told me to stuff it. I was to rest. I didn’t argue. So it was I bedded down for the night fairly early, with some hot tea in me, cold dinner, and a few extra layers of clothes. Jess took first watch, then came and snuggled right in with me. I was asleep before she was.

In the morning, we got moving as soon as we could. We had a map of the area, but it was a road map. It was not what I would rely on for topography or terrain details. Eric got out his compass and was able to tell us where we were headed, and we had a discussion while we packed about where to go. We decided to head west again, and try for a rural road on the other side of the hills here. From a peak we might be able to reach someone on our small radios, but the chance was slim. Better to go for a road and try to find an abandoned car that we could get working.

We set out, my leg stiff and hurting where the bullet had torn through the muscle. I had to take another shot of morphine after about ten minutes, the pain was just too much. I don’t remember a lot about the walk, other than the dull pain in my leg. It kept me from moving fast, and I got tired easily.

Around supper time on the 20th we hit a road. We’d crested a hill, and on the far side was a gravel road winding down out of sight amongst the trees. We followed it for a while, and I have to admit it was far easier going on a nearly level surface. We wound south through the hills, crossing a small creek again (maybe the same one?) and ended up beside a clearing where we made camp. On the morning of the 21st we found a truck, a sky blue rusty old Ford, maybe new in the late seventies. It was sitting abandoned by the side of the road, and looked like it had been there for a long while. I leaned on the tailgate while the others did a quick survey of the area, and then Eric started checking out the engine, to see if we could start it. Mandy broke out a chocolate bar she must have had for months, and gave me half of it. Oh, the sweet taste of chocolate, I had forgotten its allure. She told me she had been saving it for a special occasion.

Ten minutes later Eric was ready to try the truck. He hotwired it, and it coughed once, but that was it. Repeated attempts failed to start it. He thought that the gas might have gone bad, or the battery was totally dead. Either way, we weren’t getting this truck going. I tried to hide my disappointment, since I really wasn’t looking forward to walking any more. We were down to the last two morphine shots, and I didn’t want them. We might need them for something else, so I refused to take them, even though my leg ached and throbbed. It felt a little hot sometimes too, but when I had Jess look at it, it didn’t seem infected.

We rested for half an hour, then moved on. Leaving the sky blue pick-up was something of a downer, and I sank into a mellow feeling for the rest of the day. We saw no one else until nearly three in the afternoon, and then, lucky or not, they saw us too.

It was the smell that told us what they were. We saw them on the road ahead, standing and staring at the hills and trees. One was thigh deep in snow in the shadow of a hill, and seven or eight others were standing nearby, a loose group spread out across maybe forty feet. We stopped dead in our tracks when Darren spotted them and waved us to a halt. Bad luck was with us that day though. One of them was facing us, and its eyes must have been more or less intact, because it groaned and flailed about in sudden animation, and began lurching towards us at a good pace. This naturally attracted the attention of the others, and they began pushing through the snow in an almost comical parade. One fell down, a woman with no arms, just rotted stumps, and it took her a long time to get upright again. We barely noticed. We were already screwing silencers onto our pistols, and finding places to cover each other from as the walking dead approached. A gust of breeze carried the odor to us, and we all gagged a bit. Mandy turned green and looked ready to puke, but managed to hold it in. There were nine of them, and Eric shot the first one in the face at ten yards. It toppled without a sound, and the rest kept coming. Darren shot the next one, his pistol making a soft coughing sound that didn’t carry. Jess, Mandy, and I were at the back of the group, watching behind us and around the sides, hoping there were only these, but ready if there were more. It was left to Kim, Eric and Darren to take out the nine we had met on the road, and they did it quietly and quickly. It took eleven rounds and three minutes. We inspected the dead once it was over, not touching them, and holding shirts and hands over our faces. They were a mixture of genders and ages, and they were so decayed it was hard to tell what they might have looked like in life. Now, in final death, they might get some rest. If they were original victims of the rise, they might have been walking about for eight or nine months. After a few moments we walked on.

Later that evening we heard a plane. It sounded like a small engine aircraft, but by this time clouds were hanging low over the hills, and we couldn’t see anything. The sound persisted for a few minutes and faded away, and attempts to call the plane on our radios failed. The sound gave us hope, however. A plane meant Cold Lake was looking for us. If the raiders were smart they’d fuck off now and leave us alone before they were descended upon by the wrath of the military, who did not look kindly on “parasites upon the human species”, as I had heard them called a time or two.

By the time we settled in to camp we had gone several kilometers, and hadn’t seen any houses or other vehicles. I sat on the ground and watched the others doing camp chores, my leg burning and sore. We wondered aloud why the group of undead had been there, with no prey nearby, no buildings, and no reason.

That morning we woke to the sound of gunfire. It wasn’t nearby, and we heard about a dozen shots, all coming from somewhere ahead of us along the road. Eric and Jess both thought about three kilometers off, and I believed them. We packed up quickly, and got on our way. We kept following the road towards where we had heard the shots, or in that general direction, at least. We thought about heading into the brush and avoiding the whole area, but decided to approach and see if we could grab a vehicle or determine what they had been shooting at. The road ran out of the hills here, and started a long gradual downhill slope. The snow was quite deep, but the day was looking like a warm one, despite the heavy clouds and slight wind.

An hour passed, and we came close to where we estimated the shooting had been going on this morning. We stopped, and concealed ourselves in some brush about 100 yards off the road. We had a short conference, and then Kim and Eric went off to scout. They left a lot of gear behind, taking only the basics, and traveling as lightly as they could. Eric went because he’s done this before. He was in Afghanistan after the World Trade Center attacks, and knows how to get around without being seen. Kim was going as backup, and she’s just about as sneaky as Eric.

We sat there the rest of the day waiting. We had agreed to radio silence, unless they had an emergency, and Eric had warned us it could take hours to get where they were going and back again. So we sat and kept a lookout and stayed quiet. We had a quiet, cold lunch, and stayed warm by huddling together. We had to stay out of the sunlight as much as possible, but there was almost none to speak of, so it was easy. During the afternoon, as I was getting worried about them, a family of deer walked right past us. They sniffed the air, but didn’t appear too disturbed by our presence. I guess the lack of hunting has made them less skittish of people. The largest one looked at us, and snorted loudly, then walked on. We watched them go quietly, and kept our post. Darren asked me if I thought the animals were being preyed on by the undead as well, but I couldn’t remember if anything had been in survival briefings about the undead eating animals. They seem to be a specifically human predator. We talked about this for a few hours, the others joining in with opinions and speculation. Around supper time we gave it up, having talked it into the ground. Kim and Eric still were not back.

Kim and Eric made it back to us intact in the darkness before the sun rose. I was on watch, and heard a rustling on the trail that passed nearby. The clouds were still thick overhead, so there was no moon to see by, and honestly I couldn’t have said what phase it was in right then if money was involved. I raised my pistol, checked the silencer, and nudged Darren with my boot. He came awake, and I whispered to him that I had heard noises down the trail. He sat up and woke Jess and Mandy as I turned back to the trail. Watching in silence, the tension building over the seconds, was turmoil. Was it a bear? Some sheep? Or was it a couple of walking dead out hunting for flesh and a midnight stroll? Turned out it was none of the above. I dimly made out a human silhouette against the cloudy sky, and was raising the gun, just in case, when I heard Eric whispering, “Don’t shoot me, you fucker!”

Kim and Eric slid down into our shelter beneath the trees, and let out sighs of relief. We let them get some food and water in them, and then they told us what they had seen. Eric told us that the raiders had a camp about six kilometers west by southwest. He and Kim had parked their butts on a hillside about a kilometer away and watched them for several hours. The camp was centered on a house, but they had too many people to all be inside. There were tents, a camper trailer, trucks, motorcycles, and a police van. Eric sketched us a quick map of the site while he talked. He and Kim had counted forty-seven people. There were only four women that they could make out, unless there were more inside the tents or house. They spotted three sentries, and said that those were so badly deployed that they could have snuck up on two of them without the third knowing anything was wrong.

I asked if they looked like they were ‘settling in,’ and Eric replied that they already had. They had fire pits with benches around them, and latrines behind the house. He said he knew for sure that it was the group that ambushed us because he spotted that car that passed us. These are definitely the same assholes.

We talked about it, and decided we’d avoid them. Sneaking around them sounded like the best idea, and once we were back to civilized areas we could have the Cold Lake military pay them a visit to see if they could be convinced of the error of their ways. The plane we had heard the other day was almost certainly one of ours, looking for us. Hopefully we would see it again and get in touch. This was a big area, though, and I doubt Cold Lake had much in the way of resources to spare for a search.

We waited until an hour after sunrise, so that Kim and Eric could have some rest, some more food, and a little water. Our food situation is getting bad. We have plenty of water though, from streams that criss-cross the area. Eric says he can feed us easily, even at this time of year, but we might not like our diet for a few days.

We set out, me limping along and wishing I dared use the last of the morphine. Kim and Eric both looked tired, but they seemed alert. After a few hours we rested again, all the while winding closer to the camp. Our plan was to pass through the valley a few kilometers behind the house, close enough to spit on them, but out of sight. We would follow that route down to the next road, and see if we could find a vehicle there.