Lily and Liam were screaming at the top of the jungle gym, afraid to come down. I don’t blame them one bit; I was afraid to be on the ground and I had a gun! We started to line up our shots, hoping that we had brought enough ammunition with us for all of the Undead steadily streaming toward us. One by one, they started to go down. The diminishing number was motivating; we began to believe that we could and would get through this.
I happened to turn around at one point, realizing that we could be setting ourselves up for an ambush from behind. We were all so consumed with fighting those in front of us that we had forgotten to cover our backs. There were some Undead coming at us from behind our position but they were so far back that they were not as imposing an issue as the ones in front of us.
As I glanced at the playground equipment to make sure that Lily and Liam were still safe, I was terrified and angry to see what had once been an old woman, her clothes hanging off her bloody and decomposing body, trying to pull itself up the slide. The twins had not yet noticed her. Their attention was fixed on the horde in front of us. A quick shot to the head dropped the corpse on the slide, her body making that unforgettable plastic squeal as it came to rest at the bottom. Too close.
Soon, those closest to us were all clinically dead, but in the distance we could see more of them finding their way towards us. Time to get to the Escalade and get the heck out of dodge.
Lily and Liam were an entirely different kettle of fish to deal with. The stress of the Undead and the subsequent shootout had them frozen at the topmost part of the playground equipment. And by now they had noticed the crumpled form of the old woman slumped at the base of the slide. Minimal coaxing wasn’t getting them down and we didn’t have the time to wait for them to let go of their white knuckled grip on the wooden structure.
Max had pulled the SUV closer while Ben and I had gone up to bodily pass them down to Bob who was waiting to put them into the Escalade.
Lily readily dissolved into my arms and was quite easy to pass down to Bob. Once in the car, she crawled into the back and hid under one of the blankets. Liam was proving to be a bit more difficult. His fear had made him almost catatonic and as a result his grip was vice-like.
Ben and I couldn’t get his poor little fingers unclenched from the blue metal railing. He was going to be in some serious pain from this but before we could worry about that we needed to get him off that structure and into the safety of the car. After what seemed like hours but was surely only seconds, we finally freed his fingers and passed him down to Bob, his body still as rigid as a board.
Ben and I were making our way back down the jungle gym when we heard Bob call out. Looking over the side at the car, we could see Bob trying to shake something off of his leg. Liam was standing on the ground staring in horror at something on the ground and Max was exiting the car with his gun drawn.
One of the Undead had managed to survive a slightly misplaced head shot and had crawled across the lawn and under the car where it was presently biting down on Bob’s leg. The fear welled up in my body as Max helped pry it off and then gave it one final bullet, its permanent second death. Bob scooped up Liam and put him awkwardly into the car. The rest of us all got in and Max drove the Escalade quickly out of Lac la Hache.
Turning to Bob, I shakily pulled out my gun, not wanting to say goodbye to my friend but knowing it was now inevitable, and asked him how he wanted it done. Would he rather do it himself before he became one of the Undead? Or did he want one of us to wait until after he was one of them?
The choice was his.
Bob just looked at me and smiled… Then he tapped his prosthetic leg, resulting in a hollow metallic sound, and said that the Undead hadn’t gotten him just yet.
It was our laughter that filled the SUV at that moment. And relief…
Liam wasn’t as convinced as the rest of us when it came to Bob. He had plastered himself up against the window in the back of the SUV as far from Bob as he could get. We knew they had an understanding of the Undead from Lily’s recollection of their flight to the service station. In seeing Liam’s reaction to Bob, it was plainly obvious that he had figured out the information that would keep him alive; getting bitten meant death.
Knowing that we would have to calm him down, we took a moment to stop the car in a deserted area. Bob got out of the Escalade and called out to Liam in the back. Liam’s attention had remained intently focused on Bob so when he lifted his pant leg to reveal his prosthesis, you could see the confusion play out on his young face. He visibly relaxed but didn’t speak. That would have to be enough for now.
Day 25:
When we got to Prince George we decided to go west towards Prince Rupert and the coast. After the incident at the playground, we concluded it was still best for us to get off land and find ourselves an island or a highly isolated town free from the infection. It was just proving too dangerous to stay on the road.
Thankfully, Lily and Liam were silent in the SUV. The events of yesterday had branded them with a new found respect for the outside world. It was a shame that at even at four and a half years old, they had been forced to grow up right before our eyes.
Lily had bounced back faster than Liam, to a degree; she was able to laugh and smile at the silly little jokes that we told them, though not with the same abandon that we had once witnessed. Liam was only just coming around now, having spent the majority of the night steadily observing Bob and locked in a world of his own.
No amount of talking or bodily reassurance could get through to him in the beginning and Ben thought that it was best for us to just let him be for the moment. No use in trying to snap him out of something that he might not have been ready to snap out of yet. It was just better to let him come around on his own once his young mind had dealt with what he had seen… If he dealt with it. We were all so worried and so relieved when it looked like he was coming back to us.
We got to Prince Rupert and immediately wished that we had not wasted our time. The entire city had been burnt to the ground. Everywhere you looked there were the remnants of buildings and cars. All that was left were foundations and ashen debris. Even the harbor was destroyed. Nothing was left but a few burned out hulls of boats floating in the surf. To see the destruction and the desolation was depressing. You just felt like giving up, like throwing in the proverbial towel. How much more of this could we handle?
We turned around and headed back toward Prince George. We had no other option as there was only one road that came into and went out of Prince Rupert. In our minds we thought that getting to Prince George would somehow give us a new option. That somehow, once there, we would know what to do. The obvious plan was to keep going but at this point we just didn’t know where to go anymore… We knew going to Alaska would be a mistake because once there, you were out of options and it would be very, very cold. And we didn’t have the gear to survive the weather even the summer.
I know a lot of people out there believe that the Undead are affected by the cold and that they cannot survive in those temperatures. However, I have seen the footage on YouTube in northern Russia and Mongolia and I don’t for one second believe that the cold slows them down in any way.
Heck, I’ve been to my own lab in the first day after the outbreak and I know the cooler and then even the deep freeze did nothing to help restrain the Undead that the police had managed to capture and bring to us. What they thought we were going to do with them, I have no idea…
It was useful to be able to observe the Undead in the very beginning. To see what they could endure, what conditions they would be able to withstand. I remember a colleague that got too close and learned the hard way what the Undead were willing to do. At least I got out with my life.
I’ve thought a lot about why the cold doesn’t affect them. The only conclusion I can come to is the fact that they are not freezing up because they constantly move. Always pursuing the living. In nature, if you get stuck out in the extreme cold, your body will start to shut down. Stop supplying blood to the extremities, keeping just the vital functions alive.
The Undead don’t have blood circulating through their decomposing bodies. They don’t have the need to keep vital functions alive because there are none. So as long as they stay on the move, the muscles that are slowly breaking down in their bodies will still respond.
The cold may help us in the long run because any crystals that form in their tissues may help to break them down faster but in the end, I believe it will take them a long time to freeze completely solid and stop moving altogether. A truly scary thought is this: if cold temperatures delay decomposition does that mean that some of the Undead will never rot away?
On the road back to Prince George our plans changed drastically.
Coming around a blind curve before the town of Houston, we met with a fear from our not too distant past. The Hummer that had been following us had somehow managed to track us down and now they were barreling down on us, playing a sick and twisted game of chicken. I had the misfortune of driving at that exact moment and I didn’t quite know what to do. All I knew at that point was that I wasn’t going to be run off that particular stretch of road and definitely not by this SUV.
I didn’t care that the Hummer was bigger than us or that whoever had followed us must really want us dead. All I cared about was the fact that I was tired of being on the run. Tired of being chased by the Undead. Tired of being pursued by the unknown around every bend. These jerks had picked the wrong survivor to mess with…
I gritted my teeth, placed my hands at ten and two, and accelerated.
I could hear the voices of my group around me but I was so locked on the task at hand that couldn’t make out what it was that they were saying. I knew Lily and Liam were there and I prayed to God to forgive me if they got hurt. My anger and frustration were fixated on the road ahead of me. On that Hummer.
We were now on a straight stretch clear of abandoned cars, both cars speeding towards each other, centered over the yellow line. No turning back now. I accelerated markedly. It was better for all of us to die on impact than to potentially live and die at the hands of the animals pursuing us. In a moment, it would all be over…
And at just the last second, the driver of the other car pulled to the right. The jerkiness of the motion caused the Hummer to roll completely over a number of times down the embankment and into the ditch. It came to rest on its roof and in the rear view mirror I didn’t see any signs of life exit it as we speed away.
Do I feel bad for risking the lives of the group? In a way I do; but for the most part, I don’t. We risk our lives each and every day. We needed to deal with the situation and in the moment I picked the path of least resistance. Well, they might have resisted had they been given an option but in the end, it turned out for the best. We survived.
For now.
Day 26:
We needed to stop for supplies. Everything that we used was getting low and we badly needed something to help occupy the kids. After doing a little research on the internet, it looked like the best place for us to head to get supplies was the Rocky Mountain House Co-op in Rocky Mountain House Alberta. It would take us a little more south than what we wanted to travel but at least we wouldn’t have to go into the urban sprawl surrounding Edmonton or Calgary.
Traversing the Rocky Mountains, I wondered if perhaps we could find a place of refuge among them. Maybe a cabin or home built high up the side of the mountain would be a possibility. In the end, we discarded the idea, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the Undead would follow the road up to us. Our only hope was to get completely off the beaten track and remain off their radar as best we could. A place where we could deal with any of the Undead that happened upon us, with little threat to our overall survival.
Liam and Lily were steadily returning to the rambunctious toddlers they had once been and the news of another stop had them giddy with delight. I think it was mainly just the whispered promise of some
real
toys that was making them so happy. Just something other than the makeshift toys made of water bottles would likely turn their worlds upside down. What I wouldn’t give to be a kid again; to feel the joy of anticipation at a new toy!
Driving into the parking lot at the Rocky Mountain House Co-op, we could see that there were a fair number of cars left abandoned in the parking lot. There did not appear to be any Undead milling about, but one can never be too careful. We’d learned that the hard way. The doors to the store were closed, which was potentially a good sign but they were the automatic kind; the kind that opened once you got within range of the sensor.
We decided not to attract any unwanted attention to ourselves in the parking lot by honking the horn. Instead, Max, Bob, and I were going to head inside while Ben stayed with the twins in the Escalade. We all got out and were making our way to the door with our guns handy, when the automatic doors opened unexpectedly. There was no way that we could have triggered them - we were just too far away still.
Immediately, our guns came up. Our hearts thumping furiously in our chests. I remember thinking; please don’t let them be Undead. I didn’t want to have to engage any of them today. Not when the twins had finally gotten over the incident at the playground.
Into the bright sunshine walked three other survivors loaded with supplies, all as surprised to see us as we were to see them. Warily, we all exchanged curt pleasantries, not knowing if we could trust them. Given our last encounters with groups of survivors, we were very wary to say the least.
It wasn’t until the young pregnant woman spoke up and said that there was enough inside for everyone that I realized they were just as nervous of us stealing from them as we were of them stealing from us. I laughed and told them that we were the least of their worries at this point; with the Undead walking around, we shouldn’t be working against each other.