The Lost Gods (6 page)

“What are you getting at?” asked Adam.

“What if there are forces, you know, working to…”

“Working to what?”

“I don’t know. Get rid of all the people.”

“Yeah, those forces are called zombies and they eat people.”

“No, damn it, I mean there has to be an origin to this. It’s not like six months ago it rained and then suddenly there were zombies. Something must have happened.”

“OK, like what?”

“Well, fuck, I don’t know,” said Jesse.

“Listen,” he continued, “I’ve been having these dreams. I had one where I was on a beach and there was this woman in the water.”

“I don’t need to hear this,” said Adam. “You can keep those sorts of dreams to yourself.”

“No, it wasn’t like that. I mean, it felt like that at first, but then it was so real. I could feel the sand on my feet and the ocean air. I felt this one old woman’s hand on my throat. It felt like it was real.”

“Did you find some mushrooms on one of our runs and keep them for yourself?” asked Adam.

“Come on man,” said Jesse. “I don’t want to believe in any of this shit, but it’s happening and we’ve just got to go with it.”

“OK, so you have a dream about a beach with two women, and it totally wasn't a sex dream. Go on.”

“Anyways, the dream felt real, and this second wo
man, or creature or whatever, she seems like she has it out for me. The first woman, I was drawn to her. I can’t get her out of my mind, but the other one was evil. Just being near her stopped my heart, and not in a love kind of way.”

“So, what? I mean, what do you want me to get out of this?”

“That something is at work. When you told me about the scream, and I had some time to think about it, I really think we need to check it out. Plus, I had a vision just now. I was alone in a field and it was a big clearing in the middle of a forest. I heard drums and marching. This woman spoke to me. She told me to go there. I don’t know if it’s a trap, if she’s trying to help me, or if I’m going crazy. I honestly don’t know anymore.”

“My vote is that you are going crazy, and that I should just put one in my dome and be done with all this bullshit. That’s my fuckin’ vote.”

“Come on, Adam. Let’s just check it out. We’ll treat it like any other supply run.”

Adam pulled his lips in tight against his teeth. His jaw clenched. He exhaled through his nose.

“Fine, I'll go. We'll check out the noise, but if it turns out it's some kind of super zombie, then I vote we get the fuck out of Silverdale.”

“Agreed,” said Jesse. “So shall we?”

“Wait, what? Like now?”

“If it is just a person, I imagine the situation is rather dire.”

“I’m still really tired though,” said Adam.

“You can sleep when you're dead,” said Jesse.
He opened the large, metal toolbox where they kept their supplies and food.

“Not anymore. These dead fucks seem pretty active to me,” said Adam. Adam climbed down from the platform and pulled his pistol out of its holster. He checked its magazine.

“I thought you were saving that for, you know?”

“They're called suicide missions for a reason,” said Adam.

“We're coming back from this. We’re just going to take a look. It'll be fine, so long as we just keep moving and keep quiet.”

“Lead the way,” said Adam. He threw Jesse a moc
king salute and pushed open the gate.

Three

The Hunt

Jesse and Adam walked down the desolate road that ran through the middle of Silverdale. Cars with smashed windows an
d popped, empty trunks frozen in time like ancient relics. Months ago, Jesse had divided the town into quadrants on his map. He and Adam had worked through each section of downtown and cleared the streets of reanimates. They had already scavenged every automobile in town for food and useful items, but the shops beyond the mall remained unexplored. Once they returned from this recon mission, Jesse hoped he would find some new clothes. His jacket and pants sported holes and grotesque stains.

They passed the final strip mall and headed to the outskirts of town.

“Are you sure that they went this way?” Jesse asked.

“Yep,” said Adam.

They walked in an awkward silence for several minutes. Only the sounds of their breathing, the rustling of clothes, and their boots slipping along the wet asphalt touched their ears. A calm wind blew through Jesse’s long, oily hair and his bushy beard. Rain sprinkled the town. A chill ran up Jesse’s back. He flipped up his hood and shivered.

“Hey that’s Dan’s old house,” said Adam. He pointed to a two-story house on a hill that bordered the road.

“You remember that time —” said Adam.

“The past is dead, as is the future. No point in rem
iniscing.”

“That's uplifting,” said Adam. “Truly inspirational.”

“I should have been a motivational speaker,” said Jesse.

“Yeah, right now you are motivating me to put this
9 mm against my temple and empty the magazine.”

“Don't say that,” said Jesse.

“I’m just joking,” said Adam.

“No, I mean you'd never get more than two shots off,” said Jesse, “I hope you brought more than two bu
llets.”

“That's morbid,” said Adam.

In his peripheral vision, Jesse watched Adam release the magazine of his gun and look at the rounds. After Adam’s OCD tendencies were satisfied, he reloaded the gun.

“I definitely brought more than two rounds. I've got four mags of hollow points,” said Adam.

“All a growing boy needs to combat the zombie horde,” said Jesse.

“Truer words ain't never been said,” said Adam and held up his pistol. Jesse looked at the gun. It had a si
mple style and was built like a tank. It was heavy and devoid of frivolities, but it had always fired and it had withstood ample punishment. Adam had dropped it dozens of times in the heat of battle, and he had bludgeoned several reanimates with it. Never once had it failed to fire.

“American craftsmanship at its finest,” said Adam.

Jesse held up his cudgel and said, “The upside of my baby here is that I don't have to reload it.”

Adam nodded and put his gun back into its holster.

They quickened their pace. Jesse wanted answers. He did not want to believe Adam's story about the scream. The idea of reanimates screaming or, worse, communicating worried him. Jesse's knowledge of history had taught him that communication was the first step of many in humanity's quick rise to the top of the food chain.

Ahead was the freeway sign. It bore the message, “
Zombiedale Population: 2.” Adam had painted it on one of their missions to check cars for essential supplies. An upended cargo van blocked the northern onramp: a barrier of crushed and twisted steel. On the southern onramp, a silver sedan was stuck between a lifted pick-up truck and the guardrail.

The hill steepened. Sweat ran down Jesse’s brow. He heard Adam’s labored breathing. The road cut a swath between two thick gatherings of evergreen trees. On their right was a tall concrete wall. Ahead was another tangled mass of vehicles. A gnarled blockade: an escape gone awry.

“Shit,” said Adam, and he pointed up ahead.

“We going through that mess, or are we heading into the woods?” he asked

“We might find something useful in the cars,” said Jesse.

“Or, we might get ambushed.
”

“We've only got a few hours left of daylight, so I say we stay on the road
. The underbrush in that forest is going to be thick and slippery.”

Adam said nothing in reply; he motioned for Jesse to lead the way. They walked up to the wreckage. The wi
ndows were all smashed. All of the cars were empty. Their mangled doors prevented entry into the vehicles’ cabins.

“There's no blood on those windows,” said Jesse.

“The rain could have washed away the blood, or maybe those dead fucks are clean eaters,” said Adam.

“Yeah,” said Jesse, and he started to speak again, but the words dissipated in his head before forming a c
oherent thought.

Adam leaned down next to a blue compact car's open fuel filler door, and sniffed.

“No gas. It doesn't even smell like it ever had gasoline in it.”

“This must have happened after I went downtown
.”

“Why did you
go downtown anyways?”

“They got into our house
.”

“Never mind, you don’t have to tell me.
”

“No, it's all right,” said Jesse. After a quiet moment, he began, “When they came in the first time. My brot
her, father, and I fought them off. They had busted through the side door and had attacked mom, but we managed to save her from getting eaten. Mom was scared and wanted to — just go into the forest, or to head to Seabeck and hope for the best. My brother was keen on the idea too. The problem was they were all out of shape and mom had never set foot out of suburbia. We would have been fucked. It was a bad idea.”              

Jesse paused for a while and paced in a narrow gap amid the mass of cars. He stopped, tilted his head back, and swallowed hard.

“So, dad and I convinced them it was better to stay and wait it out,” his voice wavered and his eyes glazed over. “We barricaded the house up tight. Mom had been bitten, but she was fine. It didn’t get infected. Everything was fine for a while.

"What finally did it was the second big attack. I was upstairs reading and killing time, and everyone was downstairs getting ready for dinner. We were having some awful concoction of canned food. Our typical post-apocalypse sodium and protein overload was about to be served, when they started to pound on all sides of the house. It was like they were trying to get in from every side simultaneously. They were bashing in the back door, the front door, the windows, and the barricade where the sliding glass door used to be. In a few minutes, they were already inside the garage. That whole day had seemed like a normal day at home, and then the noise and chaos of it all was overwhelming. The poun
ding was deafening. We were fine and then we were boxed in. Our safe haven only held up for a few minutes. Maybe staying in the house saved them for a couple weeks longer than making a break for it, but I don’t know.” Jesse paused again. He sat down on the wet hood of one of the sedans.

“As they came in the front door, dad was shooting them with the shotgun. They piled up in the doorway, but they started to crawl through the pile of bodies. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. They tore through each other, just to get closer to him. Dad ran out of shells, so he turned to go upstairs. One of the things in the pile grabbed his ankle. He fell over and they latched onto him and pulled him into the pile. It was like he was being swallowed by this mass of evil. I couldn't do an
ything. I was wailing on the pile with an aluminum baseball bat, but it didn’t make any difference. I couldn’t find the heads of the ones that were grabbing him. I was just hitting near his legs, and those ones were already dead. He was yelling and fighting, but it wasn’t enough to get free. I dropped the bat and tried to pull him away from them. I pulled as hard as I could. It didn’t matter though. They were tireless. I couldn’t help him. He told me to run upstairs and get his pistol. I didn't want to leave him. He started cursing at me and hitting me instead of them, so I went. I got the gun and the boxes of ammo and I ran back toward the staircase. Dad had broken off a baluster from the staircase, and he was smacking at the hands grabbing his ankles. He was bleeding and screaming, but he was fighting hard. I handed him a cocked .45 and he unloaded the magazine into the pile. It seemed to work.

“They stopped pulling. I ripped the dead hands off his ankles. His lower legs were covered in blood and he needed help getting up. Both of our eardrums must have burst because neither of us heard mom or David go down...,” He stopped for a moment and took a breath. “I helped dad into the living room. I set him down and he pointed behind me. His mouth opened wide and I could tell he was saying something, but all I heard was this dull sound. I turned and saw dozens of the bastards coming into the family room. I remember smelling what mom had cooked. Instead of her and David standing there with a bowl of awful stew, there were those things. They were in the same room where we used to have our Christmas Day celebration; the same room where I used to drink eggnog and play with David on the carpet. Dad grabbed at my shoulder, and I turned around. Two of the things pulled him off balance. He fell back into the pile. They were on him like pigs at the trough before I could do anything. Just like that, it was over. They were all dead. My whole family got taken out in a matter of se
conds.

“I was alone in a house full of zombies. I barely had a second to give up on my family and fend for myself. There was no time for,
save yourself and go on without me
. They were all dead before I could do anything, and if I stayed then I would have joined them. I wanted revenge, but I guess the survival instinct was stronger. I leapt up to the banister and rolled over it. I ran up the steps and made my way out my bedroom window. I busted through the glass and climbed out onto the roof. They were all still inside, eating my family while I jumped down off the roof and ran away like a coward. I didn't even have shoes on.”

They both stood in silence in the collection of ruined cars.

“No point in just standing here. Let’s go find them,” said Jesse.

“OK, but let's not do anything stupid.
”

“You got any
thing better to do?”

“Live, for one
.”

“I'd rather be a lion for a day, than a sheep for a hu
ndred years.”

“I've heard that before, but all the same I'd rather not die today.”

“You've got to die sometime. What difference does it make if it’s here and now or somewhere else and some other time?”

“I'd like to see the sun again before I die
.”

“And I'd like to see my family again, but that's never going to hap
pen.”

“Maybe in Heaven
.”

“You really believe in all that? Even with
all this crazy shit going on?”

“Not really, but it's a nice thought isn't it?”

Jesse and Adam wormed their way through the mess. Once they were free, Jesse pointed to Eldorado Boulevard.

“I know somewhere we can get some food and some guns,” said Jesse.

“Are you sure?” asked Adam, his brow raised.

“We didn’t eat all the food before it all went down and I know damned well that we had some rounds left.”

“Come on, man. We don’t have to do that. That was your family.”

“And they’re dead now.”

“Dude, let’s just walk down toward the high school.”

“And do what? Do you think the zombies decided to get
their learn on?”

“There might be supplies there.”

“We might find some disaster kits, but I don’t think it’d be worth the risk. We’re going to my old house.”

A murder of crows shot over their heads cawing as they flew.

Jesse and Adam crouched in unison and looked up. The birds flew southward staying just above the tree line. Jesse motioned toward the bird’s flight path and looked Adam in the eyes.

“All right,” said Adam.

“All right,” repeated Jesse.

They followed the crow’s path down Eldorado Boul
evard. Eldorado Boulevard cut through the thick Northwestern forest like an oversized hiking trail. In any other situation, Jesse would be at peace among the trees that dominated the landscape. Western Washington was the greenest place Jesse had ever seen. Firs, pines, and spruces dominated the skyline.