Days With The Undead (Book 1) (18 page)

Liam stirred in the back and Undead Bob broke eye contact with me. His intent changed in a heartbreaking beat. No longer was he interested in the unmoving lump of flesh before him, now he wanted the warm, soft, young flesh of little Liam. Sweet, innocent Liam. He should never have had to awoken to such a sight a few inches from his chubby face. His scream of terror broke me from my stupor and suddenly I was alive again.

Alive and fighting.

I didn’t have a firearm close at hand nor did I have a knife or anything useful really. All that I had were my bare hands. With Undead Bob trying to claw his way over the seat to get to the twins and now Max and Ben alerted to the problem and trying to help, I did the only thing I could think to do. I took my hands, placed them on either side of his head and twisted sharply. I twisted so sharply that I wrung Undead Bob’s neck. The feat felt like it took hours. In the slow-paced action sequence of my mind, nothing moved at normal speed.

The unfortunate thing was that it didn’t kill him… I think I knew it wouldn’t, but it did slow him down. It made his arms and legs useless to him but his mouth was still a problem. His striving, gnashing, infected mouth full of dangerous teeth.

In the dark of the early night and with the commotion behind him, Ben had overestimated the shoulder of the road and ended up running us down into the ditch. With the bumpy ascent down the embankment, I was thrown very close to the one thing I had wanted to avoid. The supplies in the back were toppled all over the twins and you could hear them crying out in pain as cans and boxes jostled around with them.

Coming to rest at the bottom, Max got out and immediately opened the door in order to dispose of what had once been Bob. He took him a short distance away and gave him one final shot to the head. Then he carried the body further away in case of scavengers or anything else that might come along.

Still in the car, I will admit that I was shaken. I could hear the twins whimpering in the back, scared and probably hurt but at that moment there was nothing that I could have done about it. I was scared and I was hurt emotionally.

Max stormed back to the car absolutely livid, demanding to know what had happened. All I could tell him at that point was that the kids needed him. I still have no idea what Ben was doing just then.

Once he had extracted the twins from the back and made sure that they were somewhat okay, he put them in the front seat and then got in the back with me. I could tell that he wanted to know what had transpired so I quickly brought him up to speed. He was shaken by what I told him; realizing that everyone besides Ben could have been asleep when Bob had turned.

Sitting in that ditch, one man down in the pitch black of night, the graveness of our situation started to sink in. And to make matters worse, the moon broke through the clouds illuminating the landscape for us. The ditch was shallow and ended at the edge of a large unfenced field. We would certainly be able to drive out of it, but in the distance heading our way were a large collection of the Undead. Probably drawn in by the light of our headlights. In minutes they would be all over the Escalade - but in the dim light, we couldn’t see how to best navigate ourselves out of the ditch.

We decided our best option was to wait them out and hope that in the dwindling light, they wouldn’t be able to see us in the car.

Ben turned off the headlights, masking us as best as he could and drove a little further up the ditch hoping that a new position might confuse them. With the way that the moonlight was shining down and the fact that we had moved into the shadows, perhaps we might have become invisible for a moment or two.

Lily and Liam joined Max and I in the backseat and we explained to them that we would have to remain completely still and silent (just in case). It was a harrowing night and not one that I would want to readily endure again. I was just thankful that the SUV was still working. I reached back and got blankets for everyone, knowing that with the Undead approaching we could all get chilled from the fear.

The Undead were getting closer. In the moonlight, you could make out the individuals that they used to be. One used to be a woman - you could tell by the long hair and the physique, though it was marred by a missing arm and a huge gaping hole in her midsection. Another looked like he belonged to a biker gang. Still wearing the jacket and leather chaps, the flesh on his face was drooping and looked like it was about to fall off.

Each one was in a different state of decomposition; some freshly dead, some with the skin and muscle starting to fall off the bone. There was a waitress, two men in business suits, a clown, some cowboys and cowgirls maybe attacked at a costume party, a woman wearing yoga clothes, a man dressed only in a Speedo, even some children of various ages. And then there was the guy dressed up like a giant taco. Many different faces, but all with only one collective aim in mind…

It didn’t take them long to find Bob’s corpse. And it also didn’t take them long to begin to fight over it. I had no idea that they would consume the flesh of each other if given the opportunity. Perhaps Bob’s flesh still appealed to them since he had only just reawakened. I prayed that they wouldn’t be able to smell the stench of death on the car - be able to follow it right to us.

Would they be able to get in? Could they overturn us? Break the windows? Anything was possible.

It didn’t take them long to find the car either. It transpired quite by accident, though, which was great for us. The giant taco happened to bump into us and as a result, toppled over. Once he was down and then unable to get back up, the remaining Undead sensed their chance at another meal. They swarmed the giant taco, ripping apart the costume. They tore his Undead flesh to shreds and devoured him next to our car. We silently prayed that the moonlight wouldn’t shift and reveal us.

Their behavior was very odd to us. It was the first time that we have seen them consume the flesh of one of their own. We could almost understand them eating a dead Undead. But eating an animate one just seemed so uncharacteristic.

In truth, of course, what was characteristic about them aside from the fact that they attack the living if given a chance and assimilate them through contamination? These encounters would stay with us for a long while, I’m sure; each of us trying to figure out a way to use our observations to come up with way to defeat them.

Luckily for us, two meals in one night seemed to satisfy the Undead and after finishing the giant taco they moved on. In the light of day it was easy to maneuver out of the shallow ditch and get back on the road - the road towards Waskaganish and freedom from the Undead.

Day 29:

Our day has been fairly uneventful, for the most part anyway. We’ve just been moving steady towards our goal: the cruise ship in Hudson Bay. I’ve sent an email to Sven Kanelstrand but so far I have received no response. I feel like we are in a race against time. While I know the letter said that they would be waiting in Waskaganish, I’m afraid that once we get there, they will have already left.

I’m sure that they have contacted others. Perhaps some of you that are still reading this. I know you have mentioned trying to head north but since leaving the safety of your homes, I have not heard from you. I guess I am lucky in a way to have the outlet, the contact with the rest of the living world - as limited as that is. I know that if I were to lose you all, I would find it hard to stop writing… I think someone needs to know what happened to us.

How silly that sounds. If the living world is about to draw its final breath, there will be no one left to read this. No one left to transcribe our struggles into the history books. Every freedom that we have ever fought for, forgotten. All of our wars now seem pointless. There was only one war that we should have been preparing for; the one against the foe we assumed would never arise. We were stupid, but one can only see that in hindsight…

If I could go back to a time before VanReit was even the name synonymous with walking undeath, I would have spent more time preparing. I would have spent more time at the range, honing my marksmanship. I would have read more about the things that would have been useful. But the time to prepare has obviously passed us by and each of us trying to struggle through this Undead world can only use the skills that God gave us. And hopefully pick up some useful ones along the way; the type that will ultimately help you to survive.

Everything that has happened over the past few days shouldn’t put us too far off our estimated arrival time, but we’ll likely arrive sometime in the middle of the night. Not optimal but at least we’ll be there.

I just wish that I could get a hold of the captain, just to be able to have a better grasp at what to expect once we get there. In situations where the Undead can make unexpected appearances it’s always best to have a plan.

Of course there is always the unexpected that you can never plan for and that is exactly what happened to us early today…

As we were driving through Blind River in Northern Ontario, Ben pulled the SUV to a complete and sudden stop. Ahead of us, hundreds of deer and moose were running down the roadway toward us.

It was terrifying.

For those of you not from a place where deer and moose are plentiful, they are absolutely gorgeous in the wild. A beautiful sight to behold as they graze in a field on a misty morning. They do not however, look gorgeous or beautiful when melded together with your car.

I have seen many individuals pass over my table at work as a result of accidents with these guys. Not a pretty sight at all. I prayed that none of them would smash into us, prayed that none of them would try to go over us. I prayed that they weren’t running from something terrible…

Two of my prayers were answered.

All of the large animals missed us, but what was behind them was even worse. A seething mass of fast moving bloody gore was headed our way. I got out my binoculars and tried to focus on the moving carpet but it was difficult; they were just going too fast. Without the time to think, I started to close all of the vents in the car and ordered Ben to turn the engine off. Ben and I braced the soles of our feet against the vents just in case. I told everyone that when the swarm covered the car we would have to be completely still or else.

I didn’t know at the time if they could get in. I didn’t want think that far ahead. I just knew that there was no way that we would be able to drive through them and survive. Once we got into them, they could have gotten up into the engine and caused the belts to seize, stranding us there with them. This was the only way that I could think to save us.

Within seconds, they had reached us. It was like someone turned off the lights as they covered the car, sensing the warmth of the car and perhaps initially confusing it with the warmth of a living body. Ben and I were like stone in the front seats but I had no idea what was going in the back with Max and the twins.

I felt the car shift slightly as Lily moved, a cry of fear escaping her tiny body, knowing that she had peeked through her hands. The sound and subtle movement was like a beacon to the Undead rodents covering us. I don’t think a metronome could have kept better time, as the different species began to bang their little undead skulls on the surfaces of the Escalade.

Within minutes I could hear the tiny fractures, see the faint webbing of cracks in the glass.

Crack, crack, crack
…

I started to cry. I didn’t want to die like this. Heck, I didn’t want to die at all… Ben grabbed my hand, needing some comfort of his own, knowing that this might very well be the end for us.

Crack, crack, crack
…

Liam and Lily were openly sobbing, the stress of the situation too much for them. Max seemed oblivious to it all. He just sat back there and held the twins and tried to comfort them as best as he could. With a tiny ping, the first piece of the windshield popped inward. I was stunned, to say the least. I had always thought that windshields were treated with a layer of plastic to prevent them from shattering. I guess no one had ever tested them against an army of Undead rodents.

A tiny Undead paw snaked through the hole, trying with all its Undead might to grab us. It might have been comical had it not been so utterly terrifying. I remember praying at that point and asking for a way out. I was amazed at how quickly I was answered.

For some reason, as quickly as the swarm had come, it was gone.

Looking in relief behind us, we saw the reason for their quick departure. A small group of cows, unaware of the danger had meandered into one of the neighboring fields and had stopped for something to eat. We didn’t wait around long enough to find out how they got on. Once the swarm was far enough away and their attention focused on the doomed bovine, we turned on the car and high-tailed it out of there. There have been times when I thought I was going to die. Never have I actually come that close to actually losing it.

The memory of those small little Undead bodies all over the car is chilling. I truly believed that we were going to die today. If those cows hadn’t come along, I’m sure that they would have been able to disintegrate the windshield if given enough time. What a horrible death it would have been…

Day 30:

When the sun rose this morning we were so close to reaching the goal we’d been striving for. Mere hours from Waskaganish. Short, short hours away from Sven Kanelstrand and the freedom the cruise ship promised. We were all in good spirits, thinking about the possibility. While we might have been somewhat preoccupied with those thoughts, we were still ever vigilant in our guard against the Undead. There was no reason to come this far only to lose the battle at the very end.

The road to Waskaganish seemed somewhat more alive than those we had covered as of late. The Undead were far more prevalent and appeared to be moving in the same direction as us. At times, they would reach out their putrid arms for our moving SUV, perhaps hoping that their paltry strength was enough to stop our forward motion.