The Reawakening (The Living Dead Trilogy, Book 1) (34 page)

Then it became calm. We waited for something to happen. The sudden quiet felt eerie compared to what preceded it. Slowly the ground began to rumble and quiver, the momentum gradually building to a crescendo. The truck began to rock back and forth, and from side to side. I held onto the cabin to keep from falling. Devin lost his grip and fell back in the bed. As I scooted down to help him, I noticed a brilliant phosphorescent flash rise up in the northern sky. I covered my eyes, trying not to look directly at the growing plume. Out of my peripheral vision I watched it spread out in a mushroom formation, silent and stunning, illuminating the landscape all around us.

Thorn hit the gas pedal and gunned it. Residual blast winds caught our sails and pushed us along the road. The topography ahead appeared straight and narrow. I crouched down in the flatbed and pulled Devin under me, covering his head with my body. Dar turned and stared at the majestic explosion off in the distance. The flash of light illuminated her heavily tattooed and pierced face, making her appear demonic. I watched as the reflection of the mushroom cloud rose up in the rear window of the cab. A second later, the calamitous sonic boom exploded in our eardrums, causing the truck to vibrate and careen wildly along the road. Thorn swerved from one side to the other, struggling to maintain control of the truck before centering it on the solid yellow line.

I didn’t want to look back. I prayed that all those dead creatures had been vanquished, as well as the contagion they carried. I kept myself draped over Devin, protecting the boy the best I could. Dar shouted at me, mouthing words that I couldn’t hear or understand. It felt like my eardrums had been shattered. The static bubbled and fizzed behind us as the cloud wafted up and imploded on itself like some dying sun.

What seemed certain to me was that the government had known about the dead flesh-eaters all along. That’s why soldiers had been stationed along the interstate, making sure to quarantine the northern quadrant. They’d cleared out that sector of the state in order to obliterate every living thing, including the virus. They would have killed us too if it hadn’t been for Dar’s quick actions. Even in the best-case scenario, we would have been taken into captivity, our remaining days spent in quarantine or as guinea pigs in the search for a cure. But would that nuclear blast finish the job? Would it eliminate the viral threat? I had my doubts, because if just one infected bird managed to fly up and escape, this hellish scenario would begin all over again.

Thorn sped down the two-lane road. The brilliance from the nuclear explosion continued to illuminate the road ahead, but the further we went, the more it began to fade until the cloud finally collapsed on itself, and we were plunged back into darkness. Thorn switched on the high beams. Up ahead was the sign for Route 295. He veered the truck onto the interstate and then stepped on the gas. We sped through Portland, where I looked for the Time and Temperature building. But all the lights were off, and the city was enveloped in darkness. The entire area smelled of smoke and sulfur. We raced ahead, climbing over the Piscataqua Bridge, which divided Maine from New Hampshire, and pushed straight towards Boston. Only a few cars travelled on the highway, and the ones we encountered sped past us at over a hundred miles per hour. The closer we got to Boston, the more traffic and human activity we observed.

We drove until the sun began to rise. Through Belmont and Arlington. Cars and pedestrians clogged the streets and everyone seemed in a mad rush to enter or exit the city. There was no rhyme or reason to anything, no governmental oversight or police authority. Chaos reigned. Waves of people walked along the sidewalks, misery etched onto their sad faces, carrying what few possessions they owned on their backs. Buildings and homes along the way appeared rundown and dilapidated, stripped of all value. Stores were closed and had been thoroughly gleaned of all merchandise. Every so often, I noticed a body lying on the street. Young children stood alone on street corners, crying out or begging for food. Grown men held signs along the street, just below the bed of the truck. People shouted and screamed at each other as if ready to fight. Black marketers peddled useless wares everywhere, but hardly anyone seemed to be buying.

The tree limbs were lined with birds. They appeared everywhere: on building ledges, telephone wires, rooftops, light posts, roadside signs. The species segregated accordingly and seemed to watch all this miserable human activity with rapt interest. The farther we got into town, the worse the human suffering appeared. By the time we arrived in Cambridge, roving groups of tattered, militant gangs patrolled the streets, pushing and shoving anyone who got in their way. A few approached the drivers on the road and took from them whatever they could. With traffic jammed, they appeared to be sitting ducks to these roving pirates. I assumed from this that motor vehicles had become less valuable because of the shortage of gas.

I watched helplessly as a driver got pulled out of his car and thrown onto the pavement. And when the driver ran back over to his car, the young thug pulled out a club and struck him in the head numerous times. He fell back along the road, bleeding. Traffic diverted around him as he lay there, blood oozing out of the crack in his skull and pooling along the pothole-filled street. One of the thugs approached our truck in a menacing manner. Dar pointed the M16 down at his head, and he backed away in surprise, his arms raised. Just one look at Dar was enough to scare the shit out of anybody. Had he taken another step, I was certain she’d have blasted him clear across the road.

The chaos seemed complete. It nearly brought me to tears to find my beloved city in such a ruinous state. I prayed to God that I might find my wife and son safe and sound in our Back Bay home. But judging by all the buildings we passed in Cambridge, I had a bad feeling about what I might find.

Dar crawled onto the roof, and stood clutching the rifle up over her head as the truck crawled along.

Black smoke filled the sky. Everything seemed to be burning, sulfurous, acidic. The sky appeared sickly and diseased. Angry mobs filled Harvard Square and stood atop the newsstand in the middle of the island. Grimy hands reached out to grab or greet us, but we kicked them all away. One man tried to jump up onto the truck, but Dar cracked him in the face with the butt of her rifle, and he fell back against the pavement. She pulled out her handgun and pointed it down at the others. They shouted and cursed at us, but made no attempt to jump on board. I aimed my rifle at them and steeled myself at the prospect of having to shoot one of them. A few of the brick buildings that comprised Harvard University were going up in flames. Staring down the long strip of road that was Massachusetts Avenue, I could see two of the skyscrapers off in the distance billowing smoke.

Dar cut quite a figure on top of that cab, her Mohawk glistening and her camouflaged face snarling in anger. Birds everywhere watched us travel along the route. They sat atop buildings, telephone poles, wires, ledges and treetops. They watched all this human misery with a calmness that confounded me. Up in Maine, the animals had acted savagely, sickened by the genetically engineered life forms, as well as from the pollen spores that had been caught up in the wind and spread far and wide.

It worried me. Everything worried me, especially the contagion I envisioned spreading throughout the countryside. It would only take a few birds or animals to carry with them the mutated genes that caused all these problems. Then it would happen all over again. The Reawakening. I prayed that the mushroom cloud had obliterated every scintilla of toxic DNA, sparing the rest of humanity from the horrors we had experienced.

A gentle breeze drifted down from the north, a troubling sign. Soon the radiation cloud would be making its way towards this area. We needed to get out of here or face a painful, lingering death. Once Margaret and Stephen were on board, we had enough fuel in the bed to travel halfway across the country. Most of the gas stations we’d passed along the road had been boarded up, looted or closed. The severe fuel shortage would soon limit travel altogether.

We crossed over the Charles River. When Dar was small she used to refer to it as Charles’ Liver. It was a running joke in our family whenever we saw it. “What is Charles’ liver doing in the middle of Boston?” I would joke. “We all know that Charles’s Liver is in the heart of Boston,” Margaret would reply. Now fires blazed over the rainbow patches of oil and grease that floated on the waterway’s surface. Homemade barges floated en masse along the river, carrying the poor, sick and huddled. Pollution and raw sewerage filled it, black with sludge, wood, and shit floating from the Cambridge side over to the banks of Boston. There were corpses, bloated and corpulent, bobbing along with the flotsam and jetsam, and covered in slimy lesions.

The truck cruised slowly over the bridge and entered the Back Bay neighborhood. Misery and human suffering appeared everywhere. The incessant sound of sobbing filled the air. Many of the brick buildings appeared vacant, as if they had been carpet-bombed. We were so close to my building now that I could practically jump off and walk to it. But so many desperate and crazed people loitered around us that it would have been suicide to abandon the truck. My heart began to race inside my chest in anticipation of being reunited with my family. The truck hung a left on Marlborough Street and continued on. He drove for another block until we’d arrived at the once-stately row of condos that lined our quaint street. Squatters scampered in and out of the front door that had once been my home. Tears ran down my face as I stared up at all the surrounding buildings, noticing that every window in the block had been smashed or broken.

I stepped down onto the street and tried to help Dar off the roof, but even with child, she refused my assistance. A few ruffians approached us as we made our way towards the front door of the condo. I wrapped an arm around Devin’s shoulder as I guided him along. My knees felt weak contemplating the horrors my wife and son must have encountered when the worst of the crisis occurred.

A large muscular man with a bald, tattooed head met us at the front door. He smiled, revealing a row of crooked teeth. Tattoos covered his entire body. His breath reeked, and his eyes were two different shades. He addressed us in an Eastern European accent. Inside the condo, gangster rap blared.

“This is my house, and you’re here illegally,” I said. “Gather up all your people and get the hell out.”

The man laughed hysterically, slapping his thigh. “Crazy, muthafucka? Things different now, buddy. World go to shit, and everything up for grabs. So get outta here and fuck off, buddy, before you get hurt.”

“Where’s my wife and son?”

“That bitch was your wife? Oh shit, buddy, that ho a nice piece of ass! You a lucky man.” He smiled and licked his oily, fat lips. “Trust me, buddy, you don’t want to know what happened to that bitch. Wanted more loving than I could give her. One day I got tired of the same bitch, so I kicked her ass to the curb. Used goods, you know.”

Tears streaked down my face. I was so angry, I couldn’t see straight. All I wanted to do was watch this piece of shit suffer in torment. But I was so filled with despair and remorse I couldn’t move.

Dar pushed past me and stood face to face with the man, staring into his eyes.

“A little freak-bitch like you think you can scare old Victor?” He made a deep-throated laugh. “I’m a Serb. I seen things in my country make your fucking blood boil.”

“Bet you haven’t seen the dead come back to life,” Dar said.

“Huh?”

“The dead come back to life and then eat human flesh.” She smiled. “Well, I did.”

Dar whipped out the hunting knife and in one motion plunged it deep into his throat. It hit the carotid artery and shot forth a stream of blood that arced out towards the sidewalk. Devin and I jumped to the side so as to avoid getting hosed by the warm spray. Dar grabbed the man by his collar and tossed him into the bushes, where he lay gurgling, his tattooed hands trying to staunch the flow.

She sprinted inside, and Thorn followed behind her. When I looked inside my old home, I saw Dar spraying the living room with gunfire and killing every occupant lying about. From the top of the staircase, I noticed a group of men running down the steps, knives and sticks in hand. I waited until the last second and then mowed them down. They tumbled to the bottom, bleeding profusely and crying out in agony. I climbed the stairs and ran into every room looking for any sign of Margaret or Stephen, shooting anyone who crossed my path. I did it methodically and calmly, like one of those high school killers. I felt no remorse for my actions nor did I care about their lives anymore. Thorn came up behind me and patted me on the back. Then he clambered up to the third floor. I followed him upstairs, but found it empty. I pointed the rifle up towards the stairway, which led to the roof door, and we ran up.

The bulkhead would not open. We pushed with all our might until the door broke open and we were able to climb onto the roof. One of the thugs approached us with nunchucks in hand and was about to strike when Thorn raised his rifle and shot him in the head. The man fell lifelessly onto the gravel-covered roof. Upon seeing our rifles, the others backed away, but there was nowhere for them to go. Upon looking down, I noticed that Devin was standing below me. Thorn went in one direction and Devin and I in the other. I counted seven men backing towards the edge of the building. Once they were standing on the precipice, I addressed them.

“My wife and son were here. Any of you know where they went?”

The men stared at me, shaking their heads.

“You can choose to either jump or take your chances with the gun if you don’t tell me what I need to know.”