The Reanimation of Edward Schuett (3 page)

Edward couldn’t help but lose his earlier fear as he watched them. None of them looked terribly hostile. The more he watched them the more he realized just how different they were from the ones he’d seen the day of the cookout. Those had been freshly dead and reanimated while these had obviously been in their current states for a long time, but that wasn’t the most important difference. The ones he had originally seen had looked bloodthirsty and ravenous, going after any living thing that moved in a slow and unstoppable wave. These three… well, if he were forced to describe their behavior, he would only be able to call it “minding their own business.” It was completely unlike what he would have expected from the undead.

Edward heard something that sounded like a whoop of delight from behind him, and he turned in time to see the truck turn at a high speed into the parking lot. It was a standard pickup truck, a Ford, although it looked like it had seen better days. Even through all the trauma he had just been experiencing, Edward still felt a part of him fill with disgust—he was a Chevy man, through and through. It was a recent model, as far as he could see from here, but it still looked ancient and decrepit. The paint job was mostly gone, leaving only the color of rust, and there were multiple dents in the doors. The engine sounded sick, like it was in desperate need of some tender loving care. That wasn’t too surprising, though. What else would they expect from a Ford?

There was one thing very different about the truck, though, and it gave Edward pause. In the bed of the truck, held down with chains, was what appeared to be a large cage. It took up the entire bed and was perhaps six feet high, but it looked significantly newer than the truck. There might have been a person in the cage, but it was hard for Edward to tell. The truck was moving fast and didn’t have much in the way of shocks anymore, so whoever sat in the cage was being rattled and tossed around. For a moment Edward’s heart beat irregularly. For some primal reason he couldn’t explain, that cage made him more fearful than the three undead things just a short distance away.

Someone in the truck whooped again, and the truck turned so it was headed straight for the west entrance. Edward thought he could make out two people in the front, one of whom was leaning out the passenger side window with a pair of binoculars in hand. As the truck sped closer the passenger disappeared back through the window for a moment. When he came back out seconds later he had a handgun and fired several times at Edward.

Edward screamed and ducked, then did his best to stay low as he ran back for the cover of the entrance. As he passed the three undead they all turned their heads at the truck, and their previous calm demeanor completely disappeared. All three made snarling noises and started their slow shamble towards the intruders. Maybe, in whatever passed for minds among their kind, they hadn’t perceived Edward as a threat or as something they might want to eat. These newcomers, however, were apparently fair game.

The truck skidded to a halt on the far side of the first wave of ruined shopping carts, its driver’s side facing the entrance. Edward ducked inside behind a tipped over claw-grabber machine and peeked out to watch whatever the hell was happening. The passenger side door opened and then slammed shut, and the man who had been in the passenger seat came around the front of the truck. He was tall and lanky with a knitted cap on his head, and he wore a wide, ridiculous grin. He was probably in his late teens or early twenties, judging from the spotty facial hair on his cheeks and chin. He raised the gun and pointed it at the nearest of the three creatures coming toward him, and Edward did his best to make himself small behind the broken machine. He hoped it was dark enough this far beyond the entrance that the kid with the gun couldn’t see him, but he prepared himself to run deeper into the store, just in case.

Before the kid could squeeze off any more bullets, however, the man who’d been in the driver’s seat got out and slammed his door. “Damn it, Charlie, you can be a real fucking psycho sometimes!”

“What?” the kid, Charlie, said. “I was only shooting at the fresh one.”

“We can get still get cash for a fresh zed just like we can for a rotter.”

“Not as much. So what’s wrong with using it for target practice?”

“What’s wrong is I’m the one in fucking charge and I have the motherfucking truck. So if you want to continue getting a cut for what I bring in, then you will do what I fucking say, got it?”

The driver didn’t appear too worried about the three monsters moving right for him. As they got within twenty feet of him he merely backed away, apparently confident that he could move far faster than any of them could. The driver was a few inches shorter than Charlie and had about fifteen more years and fifty more pounds on him. Both of them were in jeans and t-shirts, although their clothes were dark with dirt. Neither of them looked very clean.

“Right, right, got it,” Charlie said. He tucked the gun into the belt of his pants and then went back around to his door. While he opened it and rooted around behind his seat, the driver walked around to the back of the truck, still moving away from the undead. The undead snarled and held their hands out to grab for the man, but they were still too far away. The driver, however, didn’t look too comfortable with how close they were getting.

“Would you hurry up already? These three are starting to give me the willies.”

“I’m fucking trying, just hold on for a minute,” Charlie said. “The prod got wedged in behind the seat again.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to be more careful with that thing? If you break it then I can’t exactly bring in any more zeds to pay for another one.”

“Would you relax? Jesus, I’m not going to break it.”

As Edward kept his eyes on the driver he finally remembered the person he’d seen in the cage. After a few more seconds a head came into view from inside it, and now that the truck was closer he could tell that it also belonged to one of the undead creatures. The cage had a padlock on it, and the driver pulled out a key but didn’t open the lock yet.

Charlie cursed one more time as he gave something in the truck one final yank, and he almost fell over when the rod in his hand came free. The rod looked like a Taser at the end of a long metal pole, and although Edward had never seen one before he figured it was probably some kind of cattle prod. “Got it, Ringo,” Charlie said.

“Good,” the driver, presumably Ringo, said. “Now knock these three fuckers out before the get over to me and chew on my fucking skull.”

Charlie ran around to the other side of the truck, and one of the three undead did a slow turn and came toward him while the other two continued their slow march on Ringo. Charlie didn’t waste any time in sticking the business end of the prod in the creature’s gut. The air crackled and hissed, and the undead thing collapsed to the broken blacktop. The thing shook uncontrollably for several seconds with thick mucus-laced foam forming at the corners of its mouth, then stopped.

The other two turned to Charlie as well, but they weren’t anywhere near quick enough to get him before he shocked them, too. Ringo took the key and stuck it in the lock as Charlie pushed the end of the prod through the cage’s bars and shocked the captured one. The first one he’d taken out was twitching by then, but it didn’t look like it would be mobile again for another minute or so. Ringo opened the cage as Charlie set the prod against the truck, and they both grabbed one of the undead’s arms to raise it up and throw it in the cage.

The two of them worked swiftly, working as a team that was obviously well-practiced in this sort of thing, but Charlie had to stop a couple times to re-shock the undead things. When all four creatures were in the cage Ringo locked it back up, but they didn’t immediately get back into the truck and leave. Instead Charlie fiddled with the prod, trying unsuccessfully to twirl it like a baton while Ringo stared into the store’s entryway. He didn’t look like he could see Edward in his hiding place, but Edward tried to make himself smaller behind the claw-grabber machine anyway.

“Hey,” Ringo said, “did that fresh zed seem odd to you?”

“All zeds are fucking odd,” Charlie said as he barely managed to catch the prod before it fell. He stared at it a moment, as if debating what to do with it, then leaned it against the truck again before moving to Ringo’s side. “Why? See something weird?”

“You didn’t think that motherfucker was moving a little fast?”

“If it was fresh then of course it would move a little faster.”

“Not that fast. And another thing. How the hell did a fresh zed get this far out from civilization? If someone had been bitten recently it would have been closer to town.”

“Maybe it was bitten and just walked out here after it died.”

“Wouldn’t have looked that fresh.”

“Then maybe someone else came out here looking for zeds to sell and got bit by one of the other three.”

“Yeah, maybe. Still seems weird, though.”

“You think too much.”

Ringo snorted. “Or maybe the rest of humanity doesn’t think enough. Come on, let’s go in after it.”

“Go into the dark cavernous building after something that likes to eat human flesh. Yeah, that really sounds like you’re thinking good.” Despite his words Charlie didn’t hesitate to go back and grab the prod.

“Here, give me the cattle prod,” Ringo said. “You get your gun out and cover me just in case.”

“Whatever happened to you not wanting me to shoot it?” Charlie asked.

“Whatever happened to you shutting the fuck up and just doing what I say?” Ringo said, then walked through the entryway.

Edward didn’t have time to think of what he should do. The time to try running to hide in the store had long since passed, so he merely stayed where he was, hoping the two men would be so anxious to get inside and find him that they would walk right past without even noticing him. But Ringo’s eyes moved to look at everything, and as soon as they turned to look at Edward, Ringo yelped and jumped back to step on Charlie’s feet.

“Sweet Jesus, it’s right there!” Ringo pointed, and Charlie pushed him aside to get a clear shot at Edward.

“Don’t!” Edward yelled. “Don’t shoot!” He instinctively put both hands in the air, but in his crouch he couldn’t keep his balance without holding onto the tipped over machine, and he again fell backward onto his butt.

All three of them stayed exactly as they were for several moments. Edward didn’t dare move while Charlie had the gun pointed at him, but for now it didn’t appear like he was going to use it.

“Holy shit,” Charlie said. “Did that zed just speak?”

“I don’t know what a zed is,” Edward said, although he could make a good educated guess by now, “but I’m not one. Please. Something is wrong with me. I…I think I need a doctor.”

Neither of the two men moved for several more seconds. Edward took that as a good sign and slowly lowered his arms. They weren’t going to shoot him, or at least he hoped not, and maybe he could get them to stop freaking out long enough to give him some idea what was going on. There was far too much he didn’t understand, and no way for him to piece it all together on his own. He needed friends right now.

That thought didn’t last long. As he tried to stand back up, Ringo rushed forward and jabbed him in the chest with the prod. Edward would have screamed if the electricity didn’t set his jaw tight. The current running through him was still a relief compared to some of his earlier pain, but it was enough to knock him unconscious again.

The Ford hadn’t been originally designed to fit a cage with five people inside in its bed, so the cage was terribly cramped. Edward didn’t think Charlie and Ringo ever cared whether their zombie passengers were comfortable. Edward woke in the cage to find one of the creatures’ arms jammed at an awkward angle in his armpit and a foot pressing uncomfortably in his crotch. As soon as he became fully conscious again he screamed, certain that at this proximity one of the zombies would finally decide it was time to make him their snack. But other than the barest acknowledgement of his screaming, none of the zombies paid him much mind. Charlie in the passenger seat was different, however. He turned around and looked at Edward through the back window, bit his lip, and then looked out again at the road in front of them. No matter how much Edward screamed and begged to be let out, neither of the two men acknowledged him again for the rest of the journey.

When Edward finally calmed down and realized he wasn’t in any immediate danger he took a deep breath and tried to think this all through. The first conclusion he had to come to was, despite his memory suggesting that the Fourth of July cookout had only been a day or two ago, the actual amount of time that had passed must have been much greater. Years, maybe even decades had gone. He could see the proof in the state of the city as the truck passed through it. The Walmart was on the northwest edge of Fond du Lac, past Forest Mall and a large number of smaller strip malls. None of these looked like they were used anymore. The truck drove past them all, going an unsafe speed over a road broken up by years of neglect. A few of the stores and fast food restaurants they passed were boarded up, but most simply looked abandoned. One or two looked like they had burned down. Edward’s initial thought was that at some point the Apocalypse had come upon the world, and the more he thought about the day the undead attacked the more he realized he wasn’t far off.

Although he tried to avoid the thought, memories of Julia and Dana came to him unbidden. He didn’t know how long it had been so he had no way of knowing how old they would be or if they were still alive, but he felt some hope. After all, here he was, stricken with some strange disease yet still very much alive. If it had happened to him, it could have happened to them. They could still be out there somewhere.