Dead Surge (2 page)

“Then your Uncle Charlie and I will have a lot of work to do.” I turned around and faced Jake. “Listen buddy, I know you’re excited, but you have to control it, because a zombie can hear you a long way away.”

“Like those?” Jake pointed over my shoulder.

I stood up and spun around, bringing my pick to bear. Sure enough, three zombies came stumbling out of the woods, two of them crashing to earth when they tried to cross the ditch by the roadside. Charlie hustled Julia over to Jake, and then unsheathed his tomahawks. As he started for the Z’s, I faced the two kids. Their faces were calm, but I could see white knuckles as they gripped their staffs.

“Stay here, and don’t yell or do anything. We’ll be back in a second. Keep your sticks at the ready.” I advised as I turned to the fight. Charlie was finishing off the second ditch jumper as I approached and aimed for the third. I was about to protest his greedy nature when two more zombies burst out of the trees on right, directly in front of me. I barely had time to land a backhanded swing on the head of the first one, when the second got close enough to grab the handle of my pick.

I pushed on the handle, but not before the zombie, a grim grey specimen of indeterminate gender, managed to moan in my face. Habit forced me to exhale quickly and turn my head, trying to minimize the exposure to any virus-laden spittle or other fluids I didn’t want to think about.

I let go of the handle as I pushed, and quickly drew my knife. As I stepped forward, I saw Charlie finish off the third on one his side. I waited a half second for the zombie to turn over to gain his feet, and when his neck was exposed, I stabbed downward, severing his spine. He collapsed onto the pavement with a smack, and I stabbed again into his skull, finishing him.

I looked over at Charlie and he nodded at me. But his smile turned to a look of alarm. It must have been the look on my face, because behind him four more zombies were emerging from the woods.

As I discovered, his look was due to the trio of additional zombies that came out of the woods on my side.

“Son of a bitch!”

“Where the hell did these guys come from?” I asked rhetorically. For all we knew, they had been roaming the river for years, finally coming out and up to our area, attracted by the noise.

Charlie and I both spun around and our worst nightmare was unfolding before our eyes. Three more zombies had come up from behind, and they were on the verge of surrounding our children. Jake was wide-eyed with fight, and Julia was stepping back from a teenage-looking zombie that snapped its teeth at her.

Jake stuck the end of his staff in the throat of the nearest Z, and pushed with his whole body. The zombie, a taller man in a torn and filthy suit, grasped at empty air as he fell to the ground. The third ghoul was closing in on the side and Jake wasn’t going to be able to stop him.

Julia cracked the zombie nearest her on the side of the head, but the Z barely slowed down.

Charlie and I left our battles and ran as hard as we could, both of us drawing our guns at the same time.

“Jake! Julia! Down now!” I yelled. God bless those two, they dropped as if they had been hit with tranquilizers. The zombies took a second to recover from having their dinner drop out of sight, so I fired wildly as I closed the distance, bullets smacking hard into the zombies and knocking them away from the children. Charlie fired as well, and the bullets, while not immediately fatal to all the zombies, had been enough to put them out of the way while we reached the kids.

I grabbed Jake and Charlie grabbed Julia, and we skirted around the writhing Z’s on the ground. I checked Jake for any damage while Charlie checked Julia. We ignored the crawling zombies while we tended to our children.

I glanced at the advancing horde and switched magazines in my gun. I had about two minutes before things got interesting. I looked back at Jake. “No, buddy, I did. I need your staff because my stick is over there.” I pointed to a prone figure still clutching my pickaxe.

“Oh! Okay! Will I get it back?” Jake still held onto the staff, but not as tightly. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Charlie giving instructions to Julia, who was nodding dutifully.

“You bet. Now I want you and Julia to run to the guesthouse and stay there. Don’t stop and don’t look back, understand?”

“Okay! C’mon Julia”! Jake took Julia by the hand and Charlie and I watched for a second to make sure nothing else came out of the woods at them. When they were halfway to the guesthouse, formerly the Visitor Center of Starved Rock, we turned our attention to the advancing dead.

Chapter 3

“Agreed. Let’s get to work.” I spun the staff and jammed the steel cap though the skull of the nearest zombie. It had been hit in the spine, paralyzing its legs, but it still tried to crawl towards us. Charlie finished off the one that had been advancing on Julia, and the third had been hit with a lucky shot in the head, putting her down for good.

The rest of the zombies had made good time, and were actually spreading out to try and prevent our escape. It never worked, since they couldn’t move as quickly as we could, but I had to give them props for trying.

We didn’t use our guns as much as we used to, saving them for emergencies or desperate situations, but with a small band like this, we’d stick to hand-to-hand. We’d been fighting zombies for six years, with the last three being nothing but daily fights. We’d seen some strange things, but this was nothing spectacular.

“I’ll start on the left,” Charlie said. As soon as he said that, he exploded into action. He darted around to the far left of the line and ducked low, cracking his ‘hawk into the back of the knee of the first zombie. It tumbled down and he hit it with the second ‘hawk before it even hit the ground.

I turned my attention to my side and attacked the furthest right zombie. It was a woman, maybe, but since they all were turning a deep shade of grey it was hard to tell. The newer ones still looked like people, just bloodier. If they were wearing distinct clothing, it was easier and much easier if they were naked, but that was actually rare. I rammed the point of the staff into the eye of the Z, bursting the eye socket and piercing the brain. I pulled it out as it fell and levered the staff between the legs of the next one. A quick turn tumbled that one down, and I let the staff go, since the third was getting way too close. I whipped out my knife and stabbed the zombie in the neck, figuring to punch the spinal cord and drop the smelly bastard.

Good theory, but didn’t work in practice. I must have missed, because the Z just kept coming with my knife sticking out of its neck. Its hands grabbed my left arm and pulled me in for an infected bite. I grabbed the left wrist of the zombie and twisted it inward, forcing the Z’s elbow towards its face and away from mine. I used my right hand to grab the handle of my knife and pulled it out as I levered the zombie to the ground. That wasn’t easy with it still grabbing my forearm. But I gained enough space to jam the blade into the top of the zombie’s skull and shut him down.

I stepped back quickly, just managing to avoid a grab on my leg by the zombie I had knocked down earlier. I brought my foot up and slammed it down on the neck of the Z, pinning it to the pavement. A quick stab finished it off and I looked for the next foe.

Charlie had done well on his side, killing two of his zombies and removing the third. The fourth, an older gent in his Bermuda shorts and black socks, shuffled towards Charlie with an outsized groan.

I stepped up behind the zombie, and just as Charlie stood up and cocked his arm back for a killing blow with his ‘hawk, I swung my knife in a wide, backhanded sweep that completely removed the head of the zombie. It stumbled back over its butt and bounced on the ground, with the rest falling towards Charlie. The head still bit and snarled, but I finished it off with a jab to the temple. My new knife was well suited for both slashing and stabbing.

“Nice one.” Charlie admired. “I need to get a new knife. I like the way that one cuts.”

“Talk to Duncan. He seems to know more than anyone about knives and blades,” I said, retrieving Jake’s staff. If I left it behind, I’d never hear the end of it.

“Could be anywhere. Fall is nearly here, so they could have been in the woods all summer, or been following the river from a bigger, dead town.” Charlie dumped the bodies in and started walking back for more.

“Maybe. Just weird to see so many in a group around here. Hope it’s not a sign something bigger is happening,” I said, looking to the West.

We hauled the rest of the zombies over to the pit and squirted some kerosene on the pile from a squeeze bottle we left hanging in a tree for that purpose. I tossed in a match and as the flames burned brightly, I sanitized the end of Jake’s staff and my pickaxe. My knife I would clean back at the lodge. Charlie would do the same with his ‘hawks.

We walked back to the Visitor Center and collected our young. Jake wanted to hold his staff, because Julia had hers, but relented when I refused in a voice that brooked no argument.

As we entered the clearing on our way to the stairs, I looked up and saw Sarah and Rebecca standing on the first landing of the stairs. Both of them had rifles in their hands, and they were holding them at the low ready.

I waved up to the ladies, followed by Charlie, but didn’t get one in return. Instead, Sarah and Rebecca turned on their heels and walked back to the lodge. There was tautness to their movements that did not bode well for Charlie and myself.

Oh, well. I’d been in trouble before and will be again. That seemed to be the nature of things, although Sarah was lately more impatient with me. I wasn’t sure why it was, but I was sure it had something to do with the communication we had received from the capital.

Chapter 4

Charlie and I hustled the kids into the lodge ahead of us, and we stopped at a small maintenance shed for the ritualistic burning of our weapons. I lay out my knife, pick, and Jake’s staff, and sprayed kerosene on the parts that had killed zombies. Charlie did the same with his tomahawks. I struck a match and touched each weapon, watching as the flames burned bright red, and then settled to a normal white-orange. I blew out the flames once the red died out. I always sanitized Jake’s stuff twice, just to be sure. The virus, we learned, burned crimson, so it was easy to tell when it was gone.

Once the weapons had been cleansed, I took a piece of steel wool and buffed off the scorch marks. I inspected my knife for nicks, and then slid it home in its sheath. The sheath rode along my waistline and required a draw out from my back as opposed to across my body, but it all worked out the same.

We went into the main hall of the lodge and Sarah was sitting at the big table. Jake and Julia were playing in the corner, building a small universe out of plastic blocks. Janna and her daughter were over by the fireplace, waiting for Duncan to come home, and Angela was nearby with her and Tommy’s son. Rebecca was sitting by Sarah and neither looked happy. Charlie and I passed the table, and took off our gear in the supply room. For some reason I was suddenly tired, and not in any mood for nonsense regarding the safety of my son.

I went back to the table and sat down, not saying anything for a while, just reorganizing my thoughts.

Sarah didn’t give me much time. “We heard shots. What happened?” Her green eyes were angry, and I couldn’t blame her entirely, but it wasn’t the best approach.

“We got the call that there might have been a lurker along the river. I went to take a look and Charlie came along. Since we thought it was only one, we figured the kids could come with. We got ambushed by a good sized group,” I said simply, shifting my back to a more comfortable position.

Sarah looked concerned. “Ambushed? How many? Where?” If she was angry before it was gone now. From her perch on the stairs, she couldn’t have seen the fight.

“There were fifteen of them, and before you ask, I have no idea where they came from.” I was on edge myself, which was normal after a fight these days, and the implications of a large zombie group in my backyard didn’t present any positive news.