Mad World (Book 3): Desperation Read online

  We were a fatalistic bunch, with a healthy side dish of graveside humor.

  Pulling back onto the road, Dad cautiously brought the SUV up to about 10 miles under the speed limit, which was about as fast as was safe during the epidemic. You never knew when zombies, or victims for that matter, would pop up and run across the road, or AT a vehicle. It was sudden and abrupt. You had to be ready for anything. Cruising along, we drove another 5 miles down the roadway, passing the huge train yard on our left.

  “Look out!” DeAndre cried as three people came running onto the road. I thought they looked like civilians, but as they got closer you could see the eye and the lurching trot they maintained.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Dad said, accelerating and maneuvering around the area so they would miss us. They were clearly running toward our moving vehicle, which was what the zombies were doing nowadays. The theory was that they were attracted by the movement and sound, but I also thought the smell of the vehicle lured them. Zombies hunted mainly by smell, it was their most acute sense, by far

  “Boy,” Risa said, her eyes following the three zombies as we passed them. “This area is getting really infested.”

  “It may be the train yard,” Jonathan said. “They abandoned it earlier this year, remember? It’s probably a perfect hiding place; no one’s likely to bother them there.” Grim, he watched out the rear windshield as the creatures receded into the background.

  Dad stepped on the accelerator, until we were going about 15 mph faster.

  After we passed Symington Yards on our left, we headed out onto the open land that surrounded Winnipeg’s southeast corner. The morning light fell on field after rural field of green. It was beautiful if you didn’t look too closely. As we passed the last bit of the railroad yard I could see at least two zombies from the highway alone, one just wandering about, and another engaged in a furious fight with at least half a dozen people. It was a case of constant vigilance these days. It was becoming commonplace. At least up to the point where they overwhelmed you and took down a friend or family member. I drew in a shuddering breath that was half sob as I looked out the window at the misty morning.

  My dad must have heard, he reached over and took my hand and squeezed it gently.

  “We’ll make it, Luke,” he said. “We have plenty of time, and you’ve got a good team of people around you.”

  “I know,” I said quietly, looking out the window again. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I didn’t want the others to see.

  We had been driving for an hour without incident when we came to what would have been called a two-horse town in the old movies Mom and Dad watched from time to time. There was one main street, complete with hardware store, boarded-up bank, and two bars. We drove slowly through the area, rubbernecking the whole way. The Sanctuary team hadn't been through this area in a while, and we saw a few zombies off to the side, down a couple of alleys.

  “Looks deserted,” Risa said. Nodding, I kept watching the many dark corners of the town in the otherwise bright summer morning.

  We saw several dogs nosing through the trash on a sidewalk; it was obvious no one had been feeding them. Pets often suffered slow deaths; they’d been domesticated and fed by their owners all their lives, and now they had to find food on their own. Either they starved or they went wild, and it wasn’t rare to hear about a pack of dogs roaming the outskirts of a city, foraging for food and water, whatever they could find.

  Sometimes, they grew vicious and became a threat to humans, but they were nothing compared to the plague. Zombies were pretty much everywhere now. In some areas, they were few in number and easily subdued, only to have more take their place; in others, their numbers were so overwhelming that they threatened to overrun entire cities and the surrounding regions.

  Already many of the bigger cities were nearly lost to them, the residents forced to stay indoors most of the time, keeping out of sight. Even then, it was impossible to know whether a neighbor had been infected the week before and was holed up nearby, suffering and then succumbing to the zombie plague. Those who managed to survive were generally warriors by nature, and they never went out unarmed. To do so was to risk infection.

  We came to a small park, where residents seemed to have made a last stand, and built a small barricade in the middle of the park square. What was strange was the open trench built around the square.

  “What is that?” DeAndre asked, sitting up in his seat and leaning forward.

  Dad eased the SUV to a stop and peered out at the four foot deep, eight feet wide trench in the middle of the road. It spanned the entire width of the road, and there was no way around it. We weren’t going any further.

  I looked around us at the deserted park. At least the coast was clear - for the time being. “I'm going to go check it out,” I said, grabbing my bowie and shotgun. “Sit tight, everyone.” The knife went into its sheath on my side, and my hand gripped the sawed-off with familiarity. Being immune to the zombie plague and stronger than an ox came in handy, I thought, opening up the door and jumping out onto the black road. The shotgun came in handy, too, when I wanted a quick dispatch. They might ignore me, but zombies were a nuisance.

  “Be careful, Son,” Dad said.

  “Always,” I said over my shoulder. I shut the door firmly behind me and heard it lock from inside. Turning to the trench, I approached it cautiously. It was huge, really, and seemed to stretch around the small park. Beyond it was a bandstand, about fifteen feet in diameter, with a tiny shack off to the side, maybe eight feet square.

  Walking up to the trench, I saw it was blackened on the inside, up the wall and at the bottom. Kneeling down, I ran my hand along the inside edge, and it came up dark with soot. I inhaled deeply. Standing up, I brushed my hand against the side of my jeans and looked around again. The area was deserted. Curiosity got the best of me, and I jumped down into the trench and walked a few dozen feet. I came upon about eight bodies, all scorched to a crisp by fire. Looking closely, I could see most of them were zombie bodies, badly burned, heads partially missing, and dead. Wait. Not completely. I came upon two burnt bodies that were not yet dead. Their heads were intact, but their limbs had been blown off, which made crawling out of the pit impossible, although it looked like they had been trying for quite a while. They both ignored me as I calmly walked up to them and blasted their heads off.

  Looking around some more, I climbed out of the trench and up onto the interior of what looked like a last stand. Off in the distance, I saw several bulldozers and a gas tank truck. These people had made their last stand here, digging the trench and filling it with gasoline. Set on fire, it would have provided a formidable barrier.

  I walked on, approaching the gazebo and the small shack. Bodies lay everywhere, some human, some zombie. The fatal wounds to the human bodies looked like they had been self-inflicted, and I couldn’t say I blamed them for taking their own lives. Cornered and faced with the prospect of being eaten alive and infected and turning into a zombie, I’d go for a quick death too.

  I stood there on the gazebo and looked out at the surrounding terrain. There was evidence of planning that had degenerated into utter chaos. This had been a fight to the death. This town had died here. I kicked at some rubble with my boot and shook my head.

  “What a waste,” I muttered.

  Suddenly I heard a faint groaning, coming from the shack off to the side. I tensed. What was this? A trapped zombie? But the groan had sounded weak and hardly malicious, not like a zombie at all.

  I went down the steps and over to the door of the little shack. It looked like an equipment storage area. The door was padlocked, and the walls were intact. I took hold of the lock and rattled it; it was solid.

  Another faint groan issued forth from inside. Then a sob. This was no zombie. Someone had locked a human in here, probably to protect him or her from the attack.

  “Stand back,” I called out. “I’m going to shoot the lock off.”

  I listened but didn’t h
ear anything more coming from inside. Something told me the person inside was in pretty bad shape.

  Standing sideways, so the shot would not go inside, I pointed my sawed-off at the lock a few inches away and pulled the trigger.

  BOOM!! The lock not only flew off, but half the door was blown away as well. I kicked wood debris off to the side, once again mentally thanking my mother for the heavy, steel-toed leather work boots she had outfitted me in a few months ago, and pulled what remained of the door open.

  “Hello?” I said. “Let me help.” Those were the words every Sanctuary fighter used during a rescue. Our leader James Frederickson had said the words “let me help” were the most important words we could use, and in his opinion, the three best words in the English language. He recommended them even over “I love you.”

  Silence. The interior of the shack was pitch dark, so I shoved more debris aside and opened the door all the way, letting in the sunlight as my eyes slowly adjusted.

  I saw an empty jug that looked like it once held water, several blankets and a figure, curled up in the corner, unmoving.

  Approaching, I knelt and put a hand on the person’s shoulder.

  “Hey, are you okay?” I asked. “Hey, I’m a friend.” I gently shook the shoulder, trying to rouse him.

  A groan. Then he stirred, and moved slightly and turned his head up and I saw him.

  He looked about 20 and his face was covered in soot. His eyes slowly opened and he groaned again.

  “Can you stand?” I asked. “Can you walk?”

  “I... I...,” he struggled. Then he tried to sit up and stand.

  “Ah!” He cried out and fell back down.

  Feeling his leg, I was gentle, but not gentle enough.

  “Ahhh!” he cried out again, clutching his leg.

  “Is it broken?” I asked.

  “No, I just got burned,” he managed to say through clenched teeth.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Za... Zach,” he said. “My name is Zach.”

  “Well, come on, Zach, I’m going to get you out of here.”

  I put my arm around him and lifted him up. Stumbling, we made it outside the shack and into the sunlight. He blinked rapidly; he had probably been inside the little structure for days. Out in the light where I could see, I laid him down onto the grass and looked him over.

  “That’s not too bad,” I said. His leg had a small second-degree burn and it looked like he had a wound on his side. There was dried blood on his shirt. “Try to walk again. I’ll help you.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Do you have any food? I’m starving.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We have food and we’re going to treat your burns. How long have you been in there?”

  “I think it’s been four days,” Zach said. He was really weak, and he had to struggle to get up.

  I put my arm around him again and lifted. Leaning on me heavily, he was able to walk down to the edge of the trench. I sat him down on the edge and hopped down and then lifted him down and carried him to the opposite edge. Arms reached down to lift him up and out and I raised my eyes to the face of my father and DeAndre looking down at me. Dad lifted him under his arms as I pushed from below.

  “Here, Son,’ DeAndre said as he caught Zach’s legs. “We’ve got you.”

  “Thank you,” said Zach, trembling.

  I hopped up and out and helped them get him into the SUV. It was still pretty quiet, with no sign of any movement other than us. We bundled Zach into the back of the SUV, and Jonathan went to work on him. He had been trained as a triage medic for the Sanctuary team, and he was very, very good.

  “His name is Zach,” I said to the others while looking into Zach’s eyes. He had opened them to look at me, and I saw that beneath the soot and grime and pain, he had green eyes. His hair looked black but that could have been the soot too. Jonathan nodded and continued working on his patient, cutting a slit up his pants leg with scissors from the first aid kit and going to work cleaning his wounds.

  Zach was still looking at me intently, so I introduced myself.

  “I’m Luke, Zach. This is Jonathan, he’s a medic, the best. You’re in good hands.”

  “Luke,” Zach said, trying out my name. “Thank you for helping me, Luke.”

  “It’s no problem,” I said. “You just work on getting better, okay?” I patted his shoulder gently and went to go sit up front.

  Dad, DeAndre, Risa were discussing our options.

  “We could go back, drop him off at home,” DeAndre said.

  “Or shoot up flares and wait for the paramedics to come get him.”

  “We already drove half a day, if we go back now we will lose an entire day,” Dad said. “Alyssa can’t spare a day; she’s on a death sentence.”

  “We could take him along with us,” Risa said. “If we meet some authorities up ahead they can take him, get him more help, or to a family member.”

  “I think Risa’s right,” I said, sitting down with them. “We can’t afford to have any delays at all. Forget about turning back, that’s simply out of the question.”

  Dad looked at me with a small smile on his face. “Then it’s settled,” he said, starting up the SUV again.

  THREE

  “How’s Zach doing?” I asked Jonathan.

  “He’s actually doing great,” Jonathan wiped his hands on a towel and looked down at his patient. “The burn wasn’t too bad. I cleaned it and bandaged it, and it should heal quickly. His side was already starting to heal, there was the blood on his shirt, but the wound itself wasn’t deep at all. I think he was mostly suffering from hunger and thirst. Once he ate something and downed a bunch of lemonade, he seemed to feel much better.”

  I looked down at Zach. Jonathan had cleaned him up a bit, and he’d fallen asleep. His hair looked lighter now, maybe a medium brown, and his face was striking.

  “Under all that grime was a hunk,” I said, smiling. Chuckling, Jonathan smiled.

  “Well, let him recuperate a bit and I think he’ll be a keeper,” he winked at me.

  Smiling back at him, I whispered, “Thanks for doing such a great job, Jonathan. You’re awesome.”

  Chuckling some more, Jonathan made his way to the front of the vehicle and sat behind Dad. He was probably bringing him up to date on Zach’s situation. I looked down at the sleeping form again. I couldn’t stop looking at his face, there was just something about it.

  Settling down in the seat beside his makeshift bed, I grabbed a spare blanket and pulled it over my legs. It could get cool at night here in Ontario, even in the summertime. Zach shivered in his sleep, and I put another blanket over him.

  All of a sudden, the SUV came to an abrupt stop, throwing me into the seat in front. Instinctively, I put my arm out and held Zach in place so he wouldn’t roll off onto the floor. I heard swearing up front, and got up to check on the situation. Passing Jonathan on his way back to check on his patient, I asked: “What’s going on?”

  “Some kind of road problem, I don’t know.” I made my way up to the front. “What’s up?”

  “A tree has fallen across the road,” Dad said. “It almost looks deliberate.”

  I peered out the window. Night had fallen, and it was hard to see what was going on.

  “Looks pretty windy,” I said. “Want me to go check it out?”

  “Well,” Dad started to say. Then: WUMP! A zombie suddenly came out of nowhere and smashed up against the right side window. Then a second later: SMACK! A small tree branch came smack down on our windshield, almost breaking it.

  “What the …?” said DeAndre.

  “I knew it…,” Dad said as he threw the SUV in reverse. The tires squealed as he accelerated away from the mess in front of him. The zombie fell off to the side but quickly picked itself up and began run-lurching after us.

  “Oh, man!” I said, sitting down and buckling my seatbelt. Anything could happen in these kinds of situations. Dad kept reversing, then all of a sudden brak
ed and swung the SUV around and raced away from the scene.

  “I am going to have to double back to the turn off east of Kenora. We’re going to lose nearly sixty miles,” he said. His face looked grim.

  “That road looked completely blocked, and the fences were all topped with barbed wire. Looks like the town of Dryden doesn’t want anyone going through it,” DeAndre said, peering out the window and shaking his head. “It’s almost as if it was done deliberately.”

  “Oh, I have no doubt it was,” Dad said. “I have heard of this kind of thing happening. Small towns desperate to keep travelers out of their area. It never works, though.” He shook his head, looking disgusted.

  Racing back the way we’d come, it was over an hour before we could cut down Highway 71. By that time, Zach was sitting up and drinking more water. His cheeks looked pinker, and he actually had a smile on his face.

  “Do you want some fruit, Zach?” Jonathan asked.

  “Maybe later,” Zach said. “Thank you. I think I’m stuffed.” he smiled and patted his belly. Jonathan smiled and touched his shoulder, then headed up to the front of the vehicle.

  I settled in beside Zach.

  “If you let him, Jonathan will feed you until you pass out,” I said, smiling.

  “I can tell,” he said, looking out the window. “Where are we headed now?”

  “Dad is taking us down Highway 71, and we’re headed east after that. We’re on a tight time limit. We have to get to Boston and back to Winnipeg in less than two weeks."

  Zach sat up more. “Wow. Do you think you can do it?”

  I took a deep breath, trying to stay positive. Sitting forward, my hands wrapped together in nervousness, I continued. “We have to. My mother’s life depends on it.” I then filled him in on the desperate situation we were in.

  “Oh my god,” he said, blinking back tears. We were both silent for several minutes.

  “Luke, I want to help you in any way I can,” Zach said. “I know I’m just 21, but I’m strong and I’m fast. I want to help you guys. Even in our small podunk town, we’ve heard of the Sanctuary team. You guys have rescued a lot of people, saved a lot of families. You deserve all the help anyone can give.” He sat back, still looking fatigued from his ordeal, but he appeared determined.