Lord of the Dead Read online

  Several of us nodded our heads. I’m not sure if it was because it made sense or we wanted to believe it.

  Travis asked, “How do we know for sure?”

  “You’d have to have some way to measure it, and we don’t have anything to do that.”

  “Would a Geiger counter work?” Brandon asked.

  Doc Wilson nodded his head.

  “Well then, is it time for another field trip?” Brandon asked.

  Greg chimed in, “Where are you going to find a Geiger counter?”

  “At the high school in town. We used them in my science class.”

  It was a long night, and I barely slept, but despite the anxiety, I was looking forward to seeing our friends again. It had been over a month since we had seen or spoken with them. The last time we did talk was by walkie-talkie when I was on one of our foraging teams that took me close to town.

  Overnight, when the word got out that we’d be heading into town, many people lobbied to be a part of the trip, but Greg stepped in and shut down the clamor. We didn’t have the fuel to take more than one team into town. He selected the team on a need-to-go basis.

  He was going to lead the team, and I was going because I was one of the last of our people to be in the high school since I had fought the soldiers there. Kara was added to the team for the same reason I was. Brandon was going because he knew where the science labs were. His last pick was Chuck, a quiet but competent guy who had come with us from the church. He was Greg’s second when it came to building security.

  The plan was to leave an hour after first light. We gathered quietly in the front foyer, putting our gear together and checking our weapons. As I went over my supply pack one more time, I felt something slam into me and almost knocked me over.

  It was Naveen, and she had a worried look on her face.

  “Why do you have to go?” she asked, “you just went out yesterday.”

  “We are just going into town, and we’ll be back before it gets dark,” I said.

  “It’ll be okay,” Kara added as she stepped forward to put a comforting hand on Naveen’s shoulder.

  This calmed Naveen for the moment, but her eyes still held the worry and fear she carried almost all the time, buried deep down. Losing both parents to zombies can do that to a person. Kara and I had become her unofficial Mom and Dad, and because we were both in on this mission, Naveen’s anxiety level had to have been up a few degrees.

  Kara knelt down and drew Naveen close. “Listen, I need you to do something for me while we’re gone: it’s important.”

  Naveen nodded her head and gave Kara her full attention.

  “I need you to watch over Madison while we’re gone. Can you do that?”

  “I can do that.”

  While Madison was older than Naveen, Naveen had shown a greater maturity for some reason and had taken to being mother hen to Madison at times. While Madison protested, I think both the girls enjoyed the idea to some degree.

  I grabbed Naveen from behind and spun her towards me, drawing her in for a hug.

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” I said. “While we’re in town, I’ll see if I can find you something special. How’s that sound?”

  “Like some candy?” Naveen asked, her eyes lighting up.

  Candy was a rare commodity in the zombie apocalypse and one not prioritized by the foraging teams. But if I were out and came across some, I always grabbed what I could for the girls. Kara never condoned it because there were no dentists around in our dystopian world and a cavity could become a serious issue. Being a “live for the day” type, I ignored her.

  “Time to move, folks,” Greg said from behind us.

  “Back to the room,” I told Naveen, and she reluctantly retreated. We were off.

  We were in Rosemont just outside the city, and I took the chance that someone was listening and keyed the talk button on one of our walkie-talkies.

  “This is Joel Hendricks,” I said, “anyone on the air?”

  I waited as static sounded out of the walkie-talkie. I was about to press the talk button again when the speaker came to life. “Joel, this is Roger. Where are you?”

  “Passing Rosemont on our way into town,” I said, “anything we need to know about in advance?”

  “Other than a town full of zombies?”

  “Anything out of the ordinary, then?”

  “No,” he said. “What brings you to town?”

  “We’ll talk about that when we get there, okay?”

  He agreed, and we chatted for a few minutes while we slowed down to push through some heavy snowdrifts.

  It was good to hear their voices again. They put on a good face over the air, but reading between the lines, I could tell that things were not going well for them. There was no heat was at the church, and the repairs to the damage done from the battle with soldiers were behind. On top of it all, they had lost a couple of people to zombie attacks.

  Russell heard the vehicle before he saw it. In the dead new world, there were no distractions such as TV, radio, or a boom box. This world was deadly silent most of the time. Until it wasn’t. Then it was filled with screams and terror. Sometimes gunshots.

  He had attuned himself to come to full alertness when sounds out of the ordinary broke the quiet. A car engine was out of the ordinary.

  He moved to the front window of the house and watched as an SUV drove into town. A zombie spotted it, too, and gave chase, clamoring over a pile of dirt-encrusted snow beside the street and falling ass over elbows into the road. In the end, it moved too slowly and ended up stumbling after the SUV well after it had passed. The only thing it caught were the SUV’s exhaust fumes.

  Russell thought that the zombie looked dejected standing in the middle of the road, swaying there as the SUV drove away into the distance, but he also knew better. These things didn’t feel anything. They didn’t get forlorn, gloomy, or depressed. In fact, they didn’t give a shit much about anything unless it had to do with their next meal.

  From his spot in an abandoned house on the side of the hill, he had a good vantage point of the comings and goings into town from the north. It was where he had taken shelter after the attack on their house. His arm was starting to heal, but he could barely raise it above his shoulder because the pain was so intense. Being down an arm made survival difficult, but he managed somehow. In a house a few blocks away, he found a pistol and two boxes of ammo. That had gotten him by, but his main survival tactics were caution and stealth, with the former trumping the latter. He was on his own with no backup. He couldn’t afford much risk. It meant for some cold and hungry nights after his escape from the woods and after that man had led those zombies into their house.

  He had considered going to the people in the church downtown, but Cody’s word echoed in his head. “Don’t trust anyone.” Cody had said, “Sooner or later, they will turn on you, and you will be either dead or turned out. It’s better to be on your own.”

  Deep down, Russell knew that he needed to make a decision about whom to trust. There had been a couple of narrow escapes, and sooner or later his luck was going to run out. But it was holding for now. He had a decent stockpile of food, and he was keeping marginally warm. He had more time. He hoped.

  “Look at these assholes,” Brandon said, shaking his head.

  Three zombies blocked the road. We had seen several on the way in, but since we weren’t on a search and destroy mission, we just navigated around them or sped by. We had the advantage of speed. They had the disadvantage of sloth-like movement. In almost all cases, we were the clear winner. But there were those times when speed and craftiness didn’t win the day. These three zombies, though, had decided to make their stand in the middle of the street. Well, if by stand, I meant they were coming at us as fast as their dried-out and decaying legs could carry them, then it was a stand.

  “Greg, you want me to take them out?” Chuck asked from the shotgun seat. Kara and I were in the back with Brandon.

  “I wanted
to do this as quietly as possible,” Greg said. “Maybe we can double back.”

  I was already looking out the rear window when I spotted two more of our undead pals making their way into the street behind us. “I don’t think so. We have two more deaders coming into the street behind us.”

  “I’ll shoot those bastards,” Brandon said as he placed his hand on the door release.

  “No. What about being quiet didn’t you get?” Greg asked with a sharpness in his voice. “Let Chuck do it; he’s up front.”

  Brandon let out a sigh of exasperation and settled back in the seat.

  “Take them,” Greg said to Chuck, nodding his head in the direction of the three zombies coming at us from the front.

  Chuck stepped out of the idling SUV, placed his arms on the open passenger window and used it to steady his aim. He took in a breath and let it out. He then pulled the trigger three times in succession, pivoted slightly between trigger pulls. Neat bullet holes appeared in the face or foreheads of the zombies in front of us, and they went down like someone had turned off their power supply.

  “Hey, Kara,” I said, “it looks like you might have some competition in the marksmanship competition after all.”

  She slugged me in the arm as Chuck got back into the SUV and Brandon laughed. I looked to her with a mock expression of hurt, but it didn’t faze her. My arm did hurt, though. She was stronger than I gave her credit.

  Greg hit the gas as Chuck shut the door. I’m not sure if it was out of disgust or just not caring, but he rolled over two of the newly dead zombies, and their bones crunched under the wheels of the vehicle. Kara grimaced, and I thought I saw the corner of Chuck’s mouth turn up in the hint of a smile. He wasn’t the smiley type. In fact, he was all business and a man of few words. For Chuck, this little smile was a laugh riot.

  We made it to the church without further incident. As soon as it came into view, the place struck me with a juxtaposition of wistfulness and dread. Massive holes were still in the second floor made from the cannon blasts from our battle with the rogue soldiers. The repairs in place now looked makeshift and not very substantial. Still, there was something about the place where we had survived some of the worst days of our lives that pulled at my heart. Leaving had just about killed our souls, but we knew it was the right decisions. Knowing what we had done was right, but living with the pain of deserting a place so precious, though, was still hard to live with.

  As soon as we pulled up, the side doors of the church opened, and Roger stepped out. His bad knees caused him to limp out the door, and his face looked ten years older than the last time we had seen him, but still, he had a smile for us. Zach, another of the ones who decided to stay at the church, came out behind Roger, an assault rifle at the ready. He sported a bushy beard and looked thinner than I remembered.

  “We heard shots,” Roger said. “Did you run into trouble?”

  “Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Greg said as he stepped out of the SUV.

  Kara practically pushed me out of the door and leapt out, transitioning into what I would call a near dance of joy as she made her way to Roger and then onto Roger’s daughter, Paige, who had been Kara’s friend before the zombie outbreak. Almost before she knew it, she was hugging Paige, and Paige was returning it while tears streamed down their faces. While I was happy to see our old friends still alive, my excitement was muted by some overarching reserve that seemed to be a governor on any moments of pure sentimentality.

  Greg put a hand on Roger’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Chuck and I exited the SUV, and I walked to Zach to say hello. Brandon pushed between the two of us and bumped fists with Zach. Chuck shrugged indifferently and turned in an arc facing away from the church, gun at the ready, looking for any potential danger.

  When Brandon moved out of the way, Zach and I exchanged handshakes as Claudia, Roger’s wife, came out the door. Her smile was almost ear-to-ear. She surprised me by pulling me into her arms and embracing me tightly. That reserve inside me broke, and I felt my throat tighten and my eyes moistened as I was bowled over by a powerful sense memory. I was taken back to the last time my mom hugged me at my dad’s last birthday party. She was the touchy feeling type, always hugging me. I didn’t know how much I missed it until that moment. The zombie apocalypse tends to take away any room for that sort of sentiment.

  “Joel, we missed all of you and are so happy to see you alive and well,” she said, as she broke away and moved to hug the rest of our group. I kept myself turned away until I could wipe my eyes.

  After some more pleasantries, we headed into the church where more people greeted us. While they were quite pleased to see us, they looked weary. Life seemed bleak inside the church. I saw several puddles on the floor outside the sanctuary, obviously from breaches in the infrastructure during the battle. Bullet holes dotted in the walls, a reminder of the battle that was fought there when the soldiers attacked. I even saw a washed out blood stain on the carpet. The place was also dreadfully cold, making me count the blessings of the geothermal heat at The Manor. After only a few minutes back, I vowed never to take that for granted again.

  Roger ushered us down to the basement auditorium where the people gathered. They wanted to know how things were going for us. Greg filled the group in and they listened intently. He ended his talk with an invitation.

  “I fully understand why you have chosen to stay here because I know how hard it was for us to leave, but the invitation stands. You’re welcome to join us at The Manor. Travis and his crew have made it very hospitable for us. We even have some heat.”

  I thought I saw a few people in the crowd hug themselves tighter and close their eyes, imaging what it felt like to be warm again.

  Zach stood up and asked, “What brought you to town? Did you miss us?”

  A few people laughed light-heartedly.

  “Yes, we do,” Greg said, “a great deal, and I wish I could say that you people are the true reason we’re here, but we’re on a mission. Joel, can you fill them in?”

  He took me off guard, and it took me a moment to recover. “Yes, sure I can,” I stammered out. “Yeah. Well. I was on a foraging team headed north of the Lucasville towards Piketon. We ran into zombies, but there was something different about them. After examining them and going to the Atomic Plant, we found that there had been some sort accident there, and the zombies we had run into had been exposed to high doses of radiation. We also ran into some dead people, not zombies. Real live dead people.” I stopped for a moment wondering how else I could be less articulate. “They had been alive, and we’re fairly sure that radiation is what killed them.”

  A roll of murmurs went through the crowd, and Roger was the first one to speak up. “What happened at the plant to cause the accident?”

  “We couldn’t tell,” I said, “it looked like it had happened months ago. From what we could put together, we think the zombies kept the people we discovered trapped in a feed store off of Route 23. We think they were exposed to radiation, too, and that’s what ultimately killed them. That’s why we’re here. We’re going over to the high school to see if we can find some Geiger counters in the science labs. Plus, we need to get any books the library has about radiation.”

  A thousand questions came my way, and I had only about five very weak answers. After about ten minutes, Roger rescued me by saying that they had prepared some food for us. At first, Greg tried to talk them out of hosting us because he knew that supplies had to be stretched thin, but there was no way to dissuade them. Roger apologized for the meal several times, saying that had they had advanced warning, they would have done more, but Greg waved the apologies off.

  They gave us warmed beans and hard bread. If this were what they rolled out for guests, I was concerned that this meant that their supplies were running low. Before I could voice my concerns, Roger stood with some formality and looked my way. “Would you like to say the blessing?”

  I froze in place but then relaxed as Kara said, “Shall we bow our h
eads.”

  She gave a short, yet wonderful prayer of thanks for being reunited with old friends and the gratefulness for what we had been provided.

  “I won’t lie to you,” Roger said, “but living here has been rough. The soldiers did a number on the place. It has been a lot of work just to make it secure again. As you can see, we have a long ways to go, but the zombie activity hasn’t been that bad. No huge hordes like before.”

  Most the people from the church went back to their duties after lunch, but Roger and Zach stayed back and had coffee with us. Before the zombie apocalypse, I wouldn’t have touched the coffee, but if it were around now, I’d be the first one lined up to fill my cup.

  “Have you noticed they’re slowing down in the cold?” Greg asked.

  “Yes,” Zach said, “we’ve noticed that. And they tend to move around less. We’ve found nests of them in the basements of houses. They don’t seem to be asleep, but they don’t seem awake either.”

  “That sounds creepy as hell,” Brandon said.

  “It did freak us out.”

  “What do you think’s going on with them?” Kara asked.

  “It’s not that they’re hibernating, but they seem to have dropped to some lower level of state of consciousness. Okay,” he said, raising both of his hands in the air in a sign of mock surrender, “I know that sounds sort of stupid since they’re not that smart anyway, but it is as if they were sleeping.”

  “Did you take them out while they were like that?” Brandon asked.

  “Let me tell you they come out of it pretty quick. We lost two guys who got in behind them in one building. Even though they move slowly, our guys were overwhelmed.”

  Nobody said anything for about a minute. I could see the whole ugly movie of that experience replaying in his face, but he broke out of it. “What have you guys seen?”

  “We have a whole lot less of them in the country. And no hordes,” I said.

  “What about other people here in town?” Greg asked.

  “Less of them, too,” Zach said. “We had a couple groups of nomads come through, but they didn’t stay. Some time back, we heard and saw signs of some sort of battle up on Two Mile Hill. We had an idea that there were people up there, but hadn’t had time to check it out; plus, we had our hands full. If they wanted to be left alone, then we would oblige them. Now, they’re gone. Zombies wiped them out, looks like. But there were some strange signs up there when we checked it out. It looks like parts of the walls of the house had been blasted in. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it looked like a grenade or a bazooka, but my guess is someone inside got careless and threw out grenades too close to the house. It’s that, or the zombies were carrying ordnance around with them.”